Welcome Back, Hermione
by silvermisery
Summary: Hermione loses her memory...please try to trust me when I say this is as uncliche as possible for a Dramione fic, of which, after all, there are thousands and there are only so many plots, you know.
1. Touching First Words

Welcome Back, Hermione

Prologue: Touching First Words

Disclaimer: No, I don't own Harry Potter. Wanna make something out of it?

A/N: Trust me, it'll be less trippy as it goes on. This is just the prologue, remember?

The first thing she remembered was light. Bright, blinding, _painful _white light. It was all around her, shining in her eyes, probing every crevice of her face, searching and whispering and invading the privacy of the soul of someone who had been in the refuge of dark for so long. It _hurt_.

So she whimpered, a small cry that sounded strange even to her, who had been in the haven of silence for so long.

It had been safe there, safe and dark and nice with no sounds or lights or feelings to touch her, to hurt her there. Nothing—nothing except dark dark dark and she wanted the dark to come back because it hurt so much out here with the bright light.

And then she heard the voices.

"Quickly, I think she's responding to something here!"

Excited mumbling that she doesn't pay attention to because she's too busy trying to adjust to that damn light. Oh Merlin it hurts so bad, and she wants to go back to that nice place where nothing hurt and it was all safe and sound and—

Oh great, now her head's pounding too, great thumping grinds of whatever punishing stone wheels that are up there, punctuated by sharp needles that are pricking in her flesh, whatever part of it that isn't being slowly trampled by those awful wheels.

"Mione? Mione? Hey girl, can you hear me?"

_Yes, _she thinks, _yes I can, but I don't want to. Go away. Go away and leave me alone so I can be back __with__ my dark again. Nice dark. Nice __nice__ dark. Go away. Go away. Make it all go away._

But the voice is dragging her up now, dragging her away from her nice safe dark and into the blinding bright white light that hurts so much, oh for crying out loud just leave the poor girl alone but the voice won't, and then the voice is joined by yet _another _voice, for the love of—can't they just leave her alone?

And then that damn Gryffindor nobility speaks up and says, _if they want you so bad, the least you can do is go to them. _

She has never hated that Merlin-awful chivalry of hers as much as she does now. But it's taking over like it always does, so she opens her eyes groggily and says the first words she has spoken for three months. "Go away."

And so Hermione Granger returned to the land of the living.


	2. Nonfluffy Reunions and Broken Trust

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter One: Non-fluffy Reunions and Broken Trust

Disclaimer: Do I need to say it again? Oh, all right, I don't own Harry Potter.

A/N: I just thought in all the memory loss stories I've ever read, the victims are rather willing to believe everything they're told. I just thought it would be funny to make her suspicious.

Chapter One

"Uh huh. Right. Now then, let's stop joking around, shall we? Who are you really, and what the hell am I doing here?"

Harry Potter groaned and rubbed his forehead just between the newly formed wrinkles, a nervous habit he had picked up from Remus.

This was not going well.

When he and Ron, along with all their other friends, had hoped fervently and prayed for Hermione's recovery, this was _not _the scenario they had imagined.

The scene he had played over and over in his head had gone something like this: Hermione would open her eyes, those beautiful chocolate brown eyes and look up into their eyes, and she would go, "What?" or some other such stuff. Then he and Ron would get to explain how there had been a Potions accident in her house, a great huge explosion from the basement where most of those things were carried out, and that she had borne the brunt of the blow and she had suffered a severe concussion and passed out, and been here in St. Mungo's ever since. She would then be overjoyed to see them all again, hug them with those famous hugs of hers that he had missed so much, and they would have a great big reunion. And other such fluff.

He should have known better.

Fluff, while very fun to read about and enjoy, can be sickeningly sweet and embarrassing while being experienced at times, and just when you most want it, it disappears to be replaced by the most ridiculous of things.

At the present, the replacement was a very ticked-off Hermione who seemed to be convinced that she was sixteen, the War was not yet over, and he was some kind of creepy Harry-look-alike, only ten years older of course, and that he deserved to be eviscerated, among other things.

Which was definitely _not _the reunion he had envisioned.

"Okay," he managed. "I. Am. Harry. Potter. You. Are. Hermione. Granger. You. Are. Twenty. Six. Years. Old. This. Is. Not. A. Bloody. Joke!"

"Oh really. Then tell me why I distinctly have no memories of any of this, why you don't have glasses, why your hair actually stays in place, where Ron is, and what happened at the Department of Mysteries last year."

He'd forgotten how bossy and—well—overwhelming she could be at sixteen.

"You have no memories because of the blasted Potions accident which I have already explained to you a million times. I don't wear glasses because I got my vision corrected during the War when Lestrange broke them with a well-aimed hex. My hair stays in place because it's longer now, which means I can sort of control it. Ron is off to get the others. At the Department of Mysteries _eleven years ago, _I thought Sirius was being attacked, ran off to rescue him, and ended up getting him killed instead." He felt the familiar sting at the back of his eyes, but eleven years had helped him cope, and he managed to glare at Hermione instead.

"How do I know you haven't just gotten this information from the Daily Prophet and made up the rest?" she asked, rather reasonably he had to admit. "And from what I know of Potions, it's not likely that a fudged-up Potion would cause me to lose ten years' worth of memories."

"It was a concussion. Amne-whatsit."

"_Amnesia, _Harry," she said in the familiar long-suffering voice, and he grinned.

"Yeah. Whatever. Anyway, it's true. Ask me something only Harry would know."

She frowned. "All right," she said in an evil voice with a grin. "How did you describe your first kiss with Cho?"

He groaned. Trust Hermione to come up with something like that. During his long years of marriage with aforementioned Cho, he had tried his hardest to forget that ill-fated first and _especially _that kiss.

"Mphgrmph," he mumbled in a small voice.

"What? Can't hear you, Harry," she said in a sing-song voice.

"Wet!" he said exasperatedly.

She grinned. "Okay, so I concede that. But—wait a minute." She frowned. "That was all over the Daily Prophet, your date and kiss with Cho, and anyone could have heard you telling us that, you weren't exactly discreet about it."

"URGH!" he ran his hands through his hair. Hermione's reasons were all perfectly valid, but Merlin! There were times when he wished she wasn't so smart and annoyingly logical.

"Mione!" great. Perfect timing, Ron. Now you can take over.

Shriek.

"Mione?" Ron looked hurt.

"Uh—mate—she's not exactly sure we're who we say we are. She thinks we're lying."

"Oh." He frowned, then brightened up. "Well then, convince her we're not!"

"Brilliant idea, mate," Harry said, struggling not to roll his eyes. "You do that."

"Ronald Weasley, you never get a clue, do you?" said a familiar drawling voice.

Harry turned around and grinned. "Hey, Malfoy."

"Hey, Pot—" he broke off the customary greeting as his eyes fell upon Hermione sitting up.

For a moment, everything froze into place. Time itself was locked in stasis and all occupants froze in place as Draco Malfoy's eyes fell upon the girl sitting on a hospital bed with a distinct scowl on her face.

"Hermione!" his face lit up. Harry had never seen anything like it. It was as though a whole sun had suddenly burst into being and his inner self was lit up with radiance, light pouring off him in waves, happiness and joy so intense it was _tangible, _as though Harry could reach out and touch it.

In all their years of tentative friendship, he had never seen the man so purely happy. Never seen him let down his guard so.

In slow motion, never taking his eyes off her, drinking her in as though he could never get enough of her, he walked toward the bed. "Hermione," he breathed again, sinking down beside her. "Gods, I've missed you. Gods, how I've missed you." He leaned toward her as though not quite believing this was real, and stretched one hand out to her cheek as though to reassure himself that she was there.

What happened next jerked them all back from the dream-like quality of the scene.

She slapped his hand away. Hard. Then slapped his face. Then said, "What the _fuck _are you doing, Malfoy?!"

Harry recoiled from the terrible look on his face. It was unbearable because of the sheer intensity of _hurt _on it, the look of betrayal as though nothing was ever going to be alright in his world again. It was like a kicked puppy, but worse, because Malfoy was much more than a kicked puppy, and what had just happened was much more than a casual kick to the side.

Much more.

It was a blow to his trust, the shaky glowing golden thing that had been so carefully nurtured by her over the last ten years, the tiny seed she had planted in his heart, watered it daily, tended to it, been the sun that kept it growing until it had blossomed to a flower—beautiful, tall, but still fragile nevertheless. The trust she had just shattered.

To Hermione, this Hermione, it had been nothing. _He _was nothing to her.

But Harry knew.

No one except Hermione knew the full extent of the damage, both physical and mental, that Lucius Malfoy had done to his son. But Harry had seen a great deal of it.

He had known how Draco had been neglected and beaten as a child, how his trust had been not only fragmented, but trampled all over before it had ever had a chance to grow. How he had been forced to join the Death Eaters at sixteen. How he had seen the tortures of countless Muggles and Muggle-borns. How he had lived with the guilt and attempted to deal with it in all the worst ways until Hermione had entered his life. How she had done nothing but love him, love him with all her heart as no one had ever done before. And how that love had done what Azkaban, reform programs, Lucius, and nothing else had been able to.

And so he knew what she had just done.

The man just stayed there, frozen in place, his gray eyes wide as he stared at the woman—no, girl—who had just with one blow effectively destroyed ten years' work. Stared at her with unseeing eyes that were reliving all his tortures, all his guilt, all his—

Harry leapt across the room before he knew what he was doing and started shaking the man fiercely. "Malfoy. Malfoy. _Malfoy! _Snap out it." The other man's eyes stared vacantly at him.

"MALFOY!" A shudder racked his body, and the gray eyes were suddenly filled with pain.

"Malfoy. She's not herself. She doesn't know who you are. She's—"

He broke off. "She—doesn't know who I am?" the question was hopeless, and Harry hoped he had not just made it worse.

"Malfoy. She doesn't even know who I am, really. I've been trying to convince her that she's not sixteen anymore, the War is over, and that I really am her best friend."

Harry wasn't sure if any of his desperate babble had gotten through to the man in front of him, but he did know that it was imperative to get him out of the room and away from her as soon as possible. Malfoy was strong. He would cope. But Harry wasn't sure what would happen if he remained with Hermione.

Continuing to chatter aimlessly, he shoved Malfoy out the door and herded Ron out after him to do something—anything—and turned to Hermione, a terrible rage in his eyes.

"Do you know what you just did?" his voice was quiet, calm, low, but his green eyes were blazing, and she shrank back slightly.

"That was _Malfoy! _What was he doing trying to touch me?" she said, her voice indignant, but less sure of herself now.

"Okay. I'm going to talk, you're going to listen. During the War, Malfoy switched sides. He became a spy for the Order and then later, when his cover was blown, a fighter for us. The Wizarding world is still shy of him. You are his wife of five years. He loves you. He _trusts _you, goddamnit, and you just broke that trust. Do you know how hard it is for him to trust anyone? You are twenty-six, and he is twenty-six, and I don't know if he's ever going to recover from that.

"He was abused, mentally and physically, by Lucius. He was tortured by Voldemort. He was forced to watch and occasionally torture and kill Muggles. The guilt of that is still haunting him. You're the only person he trusts completely, and you go and _hit _him?"

Somewhere in the back of his mind he knows he is being unfair, that she could not possibly have known, that her reaction is only what his would have been in her position. But the look on Malfoy's face is driving him crazy. Throughout the War, he had attained a sort of grudging respect for the man, which culminated in a sort of friendship with him after Malfoy saved his life.

Hermione's brown eyes are wide, and she is clutching the sheets around her as though to draw them up around her as a sort of futile defense against his anger. A small whimper escapes her, and despite himself he feels sorry. This is miles away from the fluffy reunion he wanted. A heavy sigh gusts from his mouth, and he teeters on the edge of apologizing to her. But then he remembers Malfoy, and he turns on his heel and leaves the room to go search for the man, leaving the confused girl-woman to brood about what he has just said.


	3. Of Melodrama and Fairy Tale Knights

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Two: Of Melodrama and Fairy Tale Knights

Disclaimer: Hmm…what was I gonna say again? Oh right, I don't own Harry Potter. Shame…he seemed like such a nice boy…

A/N: yes, I realize I've made Draco a little OOC here, but I always did like child abuse/trauma/recovery fics.

He stood there, shaking, as the foundations of his world crashed down around him and he was plunged into darkness again.

He had thought he would be able to escape the darkness which had been forever clawing at him since the moment he had been born, to run away from his destiny and to actually live a semi-normal life for once.

Guess he'd thought wrong.

A tiny part of his mind shouted that he was being melodramatic and utterly stupid, that she hadn't known what she was doing, and that he was totally overreacting.

He knew that the tiny part was right.

But it didn't help the fact that he felt totally and utterly betrayed. Unknowingly, his hand reached up to touch the place where she had slapped him. It was his right cheek, and his hand caressed the slightly red area, the same place where she had slapped him in third year and he had gained an unwilling respect for the girl who dared to stand up to him.

Only this time around, it hurt a lot more because she wasn't the Mudblood friend of Potter. She was Hermione, his wife.

His long strands of platinum-blond hair fell forward as he bowed his head slightly to look away from Weasley's questioning, piercing gaze. The man, doltish and slow as he was, had an unfortunately keen perception sometimes, and he had no wish to allow those blue eyes to stare at him now, when his defenses were so ravaged.

So broken.

Who knew a simple slap could do that to him?

He was so hyper-sensitive.

But _damn, _for a moment when she had hit him he had seen Lucius in her eyes, in her slap, in her words, and the tone of her words had cut him far more deeply than he cared to admit. In that moment of pain, he had shown himself far too vulnerable to Potter, and he had no wish to reenact that embarrassing display of Hufflepuff weakness again.

Instead he stared off into the distance.

"Are you all right?" Weasley.

"Yes. I'm fine." His voice was curt, and he could feel Weasley's palpable disbelief, but he refused to say anymore, and apparently even Weasley could tell when he wasn't wanted, because the red-head actually fell silent, instead staring out in perfect silence at the window.

He wondered what Potter was saying to her in there.

He wondered if she was going to see him again.

He wondered if he'd ever get over this stupid habit of falling apart because of her.

But most of all, he wondered if she'd ever love him again, or if the first time had just been a fluke, a weird mishap, and she wasn't ever going to come back to him.

Because of course, someone like her could do so much better than someone like him. And maybe, the second time around, she was going to realize that.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

She lay there, trying to process it all and longing for the nice safe dark again. The man who called himself Harry, and who she was pretty sure _was _Harry, even if his hair didn't stick up in the back, had said she was twenty-six. That was the first thing to deal with.

She didn't feel twenty-six. Actually, she didn't even feel sixteen. Right now, she felt six. A very scared, insecure six. Though she could remember everything pretty well up until the point she was sixteen, which meant she was pretty sure she was at least sixteen.

Yes, at least sixteen. That was a start, anyway, from six. Now let's see if I can fast-forward ten more years. Nope, not working.

Twenty-six. That seemed impossibly old. Twenty-six. To a sixteen-year-old, that was _prehistoric! _She lay there, trying to come to terms with it all, trying to understand that she was a wife, had a job, and for crying out loud, was twenty-six.

And oh, that hurt too, because as sixteen-year-old girls tend to do, she had gone over every detail of her perfect wedding with Ginny, complete with flower decorations, dress, shoes, and place, and it stung not to be able to remember her 'perfect day.'

Or, come to think of it, her 'perfect first night.' Ouch. That was rather embarrassing to think about.

And shite, there it was. She was a wife. And not Ron's wife, as she would have expected. _Malfoy__'__s. _Ferret boy's. You know, the boy who tried to get Hagrid sacked and Buckbeak killed? The boy who was part of damn Inquisitorial squad last year—I mean eleven years ago? _T__hat _boy? She still wasn't sure they were talking about the same person here.

It was beyond weird.

It was impossible.

She was half-expecting Harry and Ron to jump out at her and shout, "April's Fools," or some such thing. Except that wizards didn't do April Fools, as she had learned the hard way when Ron didn't appreciate one of her pranks on aforementioned day. It was a purely Muggle holiday, one of the better ideas of Muggles really, which wizards should pick up.

Which really wasn't comforting.

And which brought her back to the speech the twenty-six-year-old Harry had so scared her with. She was pretty sure he was Harry—only Harry could be that intense, that vivid, that _alive _and passionate with life.

Only Harry could be that angry.

Though she did wonder what had happened to make him that intense about Malfoy.

Because if she knew him—and she did, ten years screwed—he only got that way about things he really, really believed in—or people he really, really cared about. And she hated that she didn't know when he had gotten so close to Malfoy that he got that intense about him.

And if she was allowed to read yet, because she dearly needed to calm down a bit. And relax. And reading always did that for her. What she would give for a good old romance novel again, maybe _P__r__ide and Prejudice, _to sooth her nerves, which were probably rivaling Mrs. Bennet's right now. Or anything, come to that. Even a Potions textbook. There was something just so comforting about running her eyes over the black and white of printed word, seeing the familiar sight, shaping the sounds silently with her tongue in her mind's eye. Very friendly.

But she didn't have a book, and she didn't want to ask for one in case she ran into Harry again—long experience had taught her that you didn't run into Harry after one of those speeches for quite some times—, so she settled for telling herself a story. A fairy tale.

"Once upon a time," she whispered as she snuggled down in her sheets. "There was a beautiful princess whom everyone loved. She was beautiful, and kind, and smart. Everyone in the whole land loved her because she was so wonderful. The poor sang her praises; the widows cried her name; the animals sang for her and her only. She was very happy.

"But then one day, something terrible happened.

"A wicked prince stole her from the castle by the dark of night and carried her away to where it was always darkness, never light. Where everything was hidden and contaminated by the spreading fingers of darkness and nowhere was not pervaded by his sight.

"She was very unhappy.

"But then a beautiful knight in shining armor came and rescued her. He took her from that land of everlasting darkness and swept her up on a white horse. She thanked him most graciously and they rode away into the sunset to live happily ever after. The End."

She then drifted off to a troubled sleep haunted by dreams of knights in shining white armor with platinum blond hair and grey eyes that were so sad they seemed to have the weight of the world on them.


	4. Coming To Grips, Or How To Paint Your Wi

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter three: Coming To Grips, Or How To Paint Your Wife's Nails

Disclaimer: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Satisfied?

A/N: Coppercurls is a tribute to Tamora Pierce, who uses it as a nickname in her Circle of Magic fics. Though technically, I disagree with her a bit on morals. I mean, Alanna sleeps with _everyone! _I was actually a bit surprised when she didn't sleep with Duke Roger before she killed him. But still, I do love that nickname. And now, after this obscenely long author's note…

He watched her as she slept. Her long brown hair had had five inches shorn off unceremoniously after that Potions incident, but most of the bouncy, exuberant curls had grown back, so that her chestnut hair was as beautiful as ever. He admired how the light bounced off it and gave red gleams. Coppercurls, he called her, and she liked it too.

He liked it too, because she liked it, and because calling her a nickname seemed to center the fact that she was really and truly all his. His Coppercurls.

Only now she wasn't, and he wondered if she'd at least let him call her Coppercurls.

Probably not, judging by her reaction today.

He shook his head and tried not to think about it, avoidance blatantly sealing off the passageways to that particular memory lane.

Her skin was as still as milky as ever, but had lost some of its golden hue for being indoors so long. He didn't mind. If he had his way, she would get it all back, and she would look as alive as she had before, filled with life and happiness and just _being _because she wanted to.

If he had his way.

The blankets were drawn up about her, slightly crumpled, and she had curled up into a little ball. It was amazing how tiny it was, he thought, as he smoothed them about her and sat back down. He recognized the sign of her uneasiness and insecurity, and wondered exactly what it was that Potter had told her. He hoped the raven-haired man hadn't been too harsh. Potter could get carried away sometimes, and in the heat of his anger, he was sometimes rather unfair, placing the whole of the blame on the person who carried the brunt of his anger, and he could be very scary at those times. Even if he did apologize later. And Hermione could be surprisingly vulnerable to speeches from her friends. Even if she was stronger than he was.

Impulsively, he reached out and smoothed her hair back, her beautiful red-gold-brown hair that was plastered to her forehead with sweat and smiled, a real, genuine smile, just because.

Just because she looked so beautiful in her sleep.

Just because he loved her.

Just because while she was sleeping, he could pretend that nothing had ever happened and that she still loved him.

Just because.

Her eyes flew open, startled and wide like a deer's, and he jerked back before—anything could happen. Gods, if she hit him again he thought he really would break down and become some kind of sappy Hufflepuff.

She looked at him and saw him jerking back, and she felt a pang of guilt for being so cruel to him a few hours ago.

"I-I'm sorry," she whispered.

He stared at her, eyes wide with disbelief.

"I really am. It's just—"

"Yeah, I know," he said, relief filling his voice. "Shh. It's all right."

And for that one moment, as she smiled blindingly up at him, it was.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Remus Lupin, professor, werewolf, godfather, uncle, father, and husband, was currently engaged in painting his wife's toenails. Yes, he was painting her toenails. The nail polish was a vibrant shade of pink, to go with her hair, which was spiky-layered, shoulder-length, pink, and kept her heart-shaped little face pixie rather than pretty.

Remus didn't mind. He loved his wife exactly the way she was, though sometimes she delighted in Metamorphing her body into various shapes. A succubus was one; a Veela was another. She also delighted into transforming into the oddest of people and jumping out at him.

Right now, she was herself, beaming down at him as he carefully layered her toenails. One stripe across, three stripes down. It was one of his more unusual talents, one which he had learned from his mother, who had said that every woman loves a man who can do 'girl' things.

He wasn't so sure about that, but Tonks did, so he was grateful. More or less.

"Father!" a whirlwind of activity—in other words, Teddy—burst through the door. A Metamorphagus himself, Teddy took after his father in looks. Sort of. His hair was the same sandy brown-grey, his eyes the same chocolate brown. His face, however, was his mother's heart. Right now, his hair was a vibrant electric blue with excitement, and his eyes shone silver.

"Yes?" he looked up after carefully finishing the last stroke and screwing the top of the bottle closed. Nail polish was the devil to get off floors.

"Aunt Mione's awake!"

All thoughts of nail polish flew out of his head at the mention of his star student and more-or-less-adopted niece. "Really?" he beamed as his wife also flew up, heedless of her toenails. Before she could ruin ten minutes' careful work, he whispered a drying spell. Tonks was a wonderful woman, but she tended to forget about things like that and was also dead-clumsy.

Five minutes later, they were Flooing to St. Mungo's, along with the five-year-old Teddy.

Harry met them at the door to her room, his green eyes worried. "Remus, Tonks. Um—she's not quite herself."

Remus raised a pale eyebrow wearily. It was drawing close to the full moon again.

"She's lost her memory ten years back. She—um—thinks she's sixteen. I think I persuaded her that she just lost her memory, but she's being rather suspicious of me. Seems to think I'm a look-alike who works for Voldemort or something."

Tonks chuckled, and Remus's lips quirked. Just like Hermione to be annoyingly smart at times.

"I think I've pretty much convinced her that I'm not lying, but she's still rather unstable. So—er—be careful. And stuff. She hit Draco—"

"What?" demanded Tonks, her pink hair becoming tinged with red due to her indignation. Draco had always been a favorite cousin of hers, despite the fact that when he was a child, he had been a spoiled brat. 'But a charming spoiled brat,' she had always said, and now she was fonder of him than ever. And fiercely protective. She knew more than most about his childhood, and had always been aware of the fact that most of his sneering bravado had been just that—bravado.

"Tonks," said Harry calmly. "Look at it from her point of view. When she was sixteen, she _hated _Draco, remember? For all she knew, he was about to hex her."

Tonks was still scowling, so Harry hastened to add, "Don't yell at her; I've already done that. I think she's suitably sorry; at any rate, she sort of made up with Draco, though she still hates and distrusts him."

With that last word of caution, he stepped aside, and Remus and Tonks entered.

She was propped up half sitting, half lying down, on the white hospital beds, her red-brown curls spread out like a fan, distinct against the white background of her pillow. Her face was paler than he had remembered, but still quite pretty. Remus wondered if she'd looked into a mirror recently. Her body was that of a twenty-six year old woman, not a sixteen-year-old girl; collarbones were prominent, and she was no longer flat. Her freckles were gone with age, and her face was wearier, but more relaxed, more serene.

She had learned that books do not solve everything, and that she doesn't always need to run everything, which had made her company much more enjoyable. Not that she hadn't always been delightful.

Her body was the same, but her face, albeit a few wrinkles, was that of the classic Hermione—still bossy, still firmly trusting in her beloved books, still worried, still the over-achiever. Remus sighed. They had a long way to go.

She looked at them questioningly, and Remus remembered that, besides her personality change, she had also lost ten years' worth of memory. He stepped forward and smiled. "Remus," he said. "And Tonks. We got married nine years ago. You were one of our bridesmaids."

She cocked her head at them, her own face rather heart-shaped, like his wife's, and peered up. "You do look sort of like Remus," she said. "If a little older. And yes, that's Tonks's pink hair. Though I don't remember it's being quite so spiky."

Tonks smiled. "I changed it after Teddy yanked a handful of it out because it was so long."

"Teddy?"

"Of course, you would have forgotten, wouldn't you? Teddy's our five-year-old son. You were his godmother."

"I was?" she breathed, her eyes wide.

"Yes, of course, and Harry was the godfather. I've explained to him about your memory loss, but please try to act as if you remember a little. He loves you very much."

She looked, and lo and behold, around the corner peeked a little head, still blazing electric blue.

"Aunt Mione!" he yelled, and shot into her lap like a little rocket.

She giggled as his hair tickled her nose, and held him tight as she began to understand and come to grips with all that she had forgotten.


	5. Of Sunny Nurses, Smutty Romance, and Wis

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Four: Of Sunny Nurses, Smutty Romance, and Wishes

Disclaimer: I don't own Draco Malfoy…pity, I was dreaming up all these wonderful things to do to him…or let him do to me. Ah well.

A/N: Not that I, personally, have ever read erotica…though I have read some M-rated fics on this site, which amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?

"There you go now. Easy does it." Her mediwitch was a bubbly, cheerful woman about ten years older than her—no, she reminded herself. Her age.

The mediwitch's name was Katelyn, and she was one of those indomitable people who keep you going through sheer sunny-ness. It was scary how sunny just one person could be.

Her hair was a bright and sunny yellow, her eyes a sunny shade of blue, her skin had a sunny tan, and her voice was a sunny voice as well. Her parents should have named her Sunny, thought Hermione ruefully. Not that being sunny was bad. It was just—overwhelming at time, especially now.

As she carefully levered herself out of bed, Hermione winced while the mediwitch kept up a steady stream of sunny chatter. Her muscles had been atrophied by lack of use for three months, but, Katelyn assured her, with a bit of exercise and daily potions intake, she should be fine in 'no time at all.'

"You're lucky," said Katelyn. "Wizards and witches heal much faster than Muggles, Pureblood or Muggle-born. So you can be up and about soon enough. Maybe a week or so."

A week! Not for the first time, Hermione thanked Merlin, Circe, Zeus, and whoever else was up there watching, for the fact that Harry had managed to smuggle in some books for her, while the Head Mediwitch frowned.

Not, unfortunately, her favorite thick tomes, which were all hardback and thus harder to fit in robe pockets, but paperbacks. Cheap romance novels, adventure thrillers, and even a few of those pocket-size classics sold for a dime on street corners. In short, anything and everything Harry dared to bring in under the stern eye of that Head Mediwitch, who was apparently the spitting image of McGonagall and Snape combined. Which, if you thought about it, was really scary.

So she didn't blame Harry for her lack of wizarding tomes.

Besides, the romance was _really _distracting.

In fact, very smutty. Practically erotica.

Not that she enjoyed such a thing.

In fact, not at all!

The fact that she read them only served to underline the fact that she was bored out of her mind for books. I mean, she _couldn__'__t _enjoy them!

Who would? Certainly not proper Miss Granger.

Which brought her back, again, as everything else seemed to do nowadays, to the fact that her name was no longer Miss Granger.

It was Mrs. Malfoy.

Damn.

Malfoy—well, that was awkward now—or maybe Draco, though she still didn't feel like calling him by his first name, hadn't come back since that stilted apology. Perhaps he had seen the reservation and pity in her face. He didn't like pity, she remembered. Or did she remember anything about him?

Or maybe he had just wished to avoid getting hurt again.

Whatever the reason, he seemed to be avoiding her, though once or twice, in that hazy state between dream and waking, she had been sure she had seen grey eyes and platinum blond hair. She wondered if he came to see her while she was sleeping. She wondered what he did during the day. She wondered if she would ever grow to accept him. (She didn't even think of love, that was too far off.) And mainly, she wondered what she was going to do about Ferret-boy.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

He _did _come to see her while she was sleeping. Every night, in fact. After the lights went out in the hospital, and the nurses went home except for the ones on the night shift, and those were usually guarding a set of Exploding Snap cards, not patrolling the corridors for any stray husbands. He sneaked in through a window—they wouldn't let visitors in at night, especially Draco Malfoy, former Death Eater and most suspected Wizard of the Century.

Potter had lent him the Invisibility Cloak, and not for the first time, Draco admitted to himself that the git had changed since their Hogwarts years. Not that much changing had been needed, since he had usually been the ones instigating the fights. Still. The prat had actually learned how to keep his temper, and _that _was nothing short of a miracle. Cho had done wonders for him.

And Draco slunk in every night, just to watch his wife sleep. Pathetic. Bloody Hufflepuff of him. Father would have been disgusted. Draco could still hear his voice in his head, smooth, confident, drawling with that hint of menace that Draco had tried so hard to attain, and had come so close to succeeding. _Idiot boy. __S__neaking in at night, like a common thief, to see a Mudblood, no less. Disgrace to the Malfoy name. _

Damn! He had _promised _himself he wouldn't hear Lucius's voice again, sly, smooth, whispering arrogant nothings in his head.

It just never went away.

And still he sat there every night, just sat there in the wooden-backed chair with one leg shorter than the others so that it wobbled slightly and gave a funny little creak every once in a while, with a cool white spot on the left-hand bottom corner, and a group of knots on the side.

Watching her.

Watching her chest rise and fall slightly with each slow, even breath she took. Watching her coppercurls fall slightly about her face, framing it with a spray of red and gold and chestnut on the sweat-drenched pillow. Watching her face look so peaceful—so very peaceful, like an angel's, that he smiled just looking at it, which was no doubt foolish, but he didn't care, because all he was doing sitting in that chair at night, was one thing—

Watching her.

His wife.

Hermione.

Her name sounded so good on his lips. He formed the syllables on his tongue, Her-mi-oh-nee. Rounded and soft and gentle like herself. Her, feminine and curvy like her body, which was rounded softly. Mione. It sounded so pretty, so delicate, so familiar and so close. He rolled her name, and trilled it, and breathed it. He never tired of hearing it. On his lips, or on someone else's.

It was so much prettier than Draco. Draco was a hard name, all angles and sharp corners and snobby severe perfection and hard masks. Just like him.

It was almost sunrise now. Soon the night shift nurses would be gone and the morning shift would take their place. The Wards would soon be tightened, or relaxed—he could never remember which—and the stuffy old bat Head Mediwitch would come in soon.

Strange. She reminded him of McGonagall.

Soon he would have to leave. Swing his leg over his Starseeker broom—it was the newest model, and twice as fast as the old Firebolt— and fly out through the window through which he had come. Sighing, he bent over his beautiful wife and whispered, "I love you."

And turned and flew out, knowing he would give anything on the earth to hear her say those three words back to him once more.

On the bed, from which side he had just vacated, Hermione Malfoy opened her eyes and stared at the open window. "I wish I could say the same," she whispered into the empty darkness.


	6. Of Ferrets, Humanity, Money Issues, and

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Five: Of Ferrets, Humanity, Money Issues, and Slytherin Masks

Disclaimer: Does anyone even read these anymore? All right, me no own Harry Potter. You no own plot. Got it?

A/N: A little angst coming up here! Or more like a self-absorbed Slytherin's introspection…

"We should be able to let you out now," said Katelyn, her blue eyes dancing with excitement. Hermione looked up eagerly.

"Really?" she asked, her own eyes shining merrily.

"Of course! Why would I say it if it wasn't?"

Katelyn had no sense of sarcasm and even less of superfluous exclamations.

Hermione just shook her head, beaming with that smile which Harry had said was, "three sizes too big for that little face."

Not that Hermione could remember her face being quite that little.

But then, she couldn't remember her figure filling out, or her collarbone sticking out, or her freckles disappearing either, so she guessed it was nothing new.

"Your husband has filled out and signed all the necessary papers," said Katelyn.

"My husband?" she still wasn't used to that.

"Mr. Malfoy, of course! I must say, he's a good-looking one. You're a lucky girl." She gave a mischievous wink, and Hermione smiled weakly.

"Er—yes. Of course. Thank you, Katelyn. You've been a great help. Bye!"

"Goodbye, Mrs. Malfoy!"

She was out the door in an instant, her enthusiasm at finally, finally escaping that stuffy room and depressing Head Mediwitch carrying her as far as the lobby before her legs practically gave out on her. She slumped toward the floor at the Fireplace, her energy depleted for the moment.

Reflexively, Draco started toward her to catch her, but she flinched from his touch.

She saw his face stiffen, and saw him back off and let Harry support her to the Fireplace where someone had already thrown Floo powder. As Harry shouted, "Hermione's house!" she looked back, and she could have sworn she saw his eyes glint wet.

Except, of course, that was ridiculous.

Because to cry, he would have to be human.

And everybody knew he was only a ferret.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"This is our house?"

Hermione stared around at the lovely little house. It was not, as she would have expected, Malfoy Manor, but a nice little house, fair-sized, with lots of light pouring in through the windows. It was set in the suburbs of London, with Apparating wards around the sizable grounds and gardens, perfect for Apparating to work.

The walls were straw-colored, with beige, warm red, and yellows mixed in for the most part in the kitchen and den, but the living room, dining room, and study gave in to Malfoy's preferences of green, black, and silver. The bathrooms were blue-tinted. The corridors were neutral colors. The bedroom was a compromise with red and silver, while the library's colors mattered not a whit, since the walls were all taken up with bookshelves, and who looked up at the ceiling while you were reading anyway?

Flowers were all around the house, apparently cared for by Cho and Parkinson during her absence. Crookshanks, older and fatter than she remembered, with a few more scars, lounged on the couch, from which he was firmly shooed by Malfoy, who looked as though this were an everyday occurrence.

Malfoy looked pleased by her surprise, but it was a nice pleased, a pleased you get when a loved on is happy, not the malicious pleased she remembered from her Hogwarts days.

Harry and Cho had left, claiming they needed to look after little James, Lily, and Albus Severus. Ron and Lavendar had left likewise; Ginny and Zabini had excused themselves; Parkinson—who had surprisingly stayed single—had pleaded needing rest—and the others, likewise, had made their excuses, so it was just Malfoy and her, which made her uneasy.

"Yes," he said. "You wouldn't live in Malfoy Manor—you said it was too dark, and that it reminded you of Lucius. Also, all the portraits shouted at you. So we moved to one of our summer houses. The Ministry confiscated a great deal of our money and estates—" not that he would ever tell her this, but for a while he had been poor for the first time in his life—"but they gave some of it back when I married you; also, you had your own money and we earned back the rest. I'm not as rich as I used to be, but we have quite a bit, and four houses, including this one and Malfoy Manor."

Hermione raised her eyebrows at the part when he said that the Ministry had given him back the money when he married her.

"So," she asked. "Did you marry me for the money?"

It was not, to her, unreasonable. The Malfoy she remembered was obscenely proud of his heritage and wealth. He would have wanted to restore some of that ancient glory. The effect on Malfoy, however, was instantaneous.

His face paled, and set grimly, a mask of ice, but not before she saw the hurt flit across his face in the half-second he allowed himself before controlling his emotions. His eyes, which for a moment had been silver with pleasure as they had not been since she had hit him that first day, turned iron-grey, almost black, and she could see, with the help of some deep inner consciousness, perhaps her subdued memory of her former life with him, that he was deeply upset.

His gave traveled over her shoulder somewhere, and in a rigid voice, he told her, "I have not, and would not, ever marry anyone for money, least of all you."

She shouldn't have. She really shouldn't. But, unable to help herself, she raised a skeptical eyebrow.

His face shut down until it was no longer a mask, but a corpse, and, in a strained voice, he said, "If you'll excuse me—" and turned and went into his study.

He turned and shut the door. It was a controlled gesture, barely making any noise, and that, more than anything else, struck at her conscience.

She sank down on the black leather sofa and dropped her head in her hands. Dammit! She had _promised _herself that she would at least try to, if not be loving, be reasonably civil. She wouldn't have to be _nice. _

And now she had gone and broken that promise within five minutes of seeing her home.

It was just something about Malfoy that seemed to irritate her. Perhaps it was the fact that he was so—so different from when he was at Hogwarts. It was an unknown factor, and it scared her, because it always scared her when she didn't know things, and because he was _supposed _to be mean, and the bad guy, and that was the way it was. And oh, she was so damn tired, and confused, and she had a splitting headache, and she just wanted it all to _go away…_

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Fuck!"

Slamming his fist onto the tabletop, he reflected, had not been the best way to express his anger. But it had either been that or blowing up the whole house with this wandless magic, which was veering to the uncontrollable due to his hurt and anger.

They had been getting along so well!

And for a moment, it had almost been like the old Hermione had been back, and oh, why couldn't he have been more careful with those Merlin-awful Potions, and it was all his fault and he knew it, he would do anything, _anything, _if his Hermione would _only come back to him…_

He knew his frantic musings were not helping in the slightest, it was just…well.

He tried to recall the cold numbness of his Slytherin days. "Argh," he muttered as the wonderful blankness he associated with Occlumency refused to come to mind. He would do this. After all, he was a Slytherin. Only the cold can survive in Slytherin. He'd learned this the hard way, and had learned it well. And he had survived in Slytherin—he had survived being a Malfoy—he had survived being a Death Eater—he could bring up the cool nothingness again once more, surely?

It was just something about his wife that caused his cool shield to fall completely to pieces.

And, in the process, himself.

In retrospect, he told himself, it was a sign that if his mask was so linked to his self that the shattering of one inevitably led to the other, his mask had stopped being a mask and become his soul—something he had sworn to himself would never happen.

So in a way, it was lucky that Hermione had come along to break his mask for him.

And then, just when he'd started being happy, he'd lost her again.


	7. On Dinner, House Elves, Wandless Magic,

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Six: On Dinner, House Elves, Bonds, Wandless Magic, and Shattered Glass

Disclaimer: Nya-nya—not mine, I know. Blah, blah, blah.

A/N: Um—I don't normally post things until I'm all done, but I'm not sure whether I should continue it, so please review and tell me! And the "so glad to know you're disgusted, love" line came from "While You Were Sleeping."

"Hermione? It's time for dinner," he called in a carefully neutral tone.

After their mini-fight which was mostly one-sided, he had holed himself up in his study and not come out again. His heightened awareness of her had told him that she had spent that time, first curled upon the sofa, then wandering the house.

He would not have come out again except that his bond with her had also strongly suggested that he go make something for her, because she was awfully hungry.

Normally he would have simply called their house-elf Kira, but he wanted to conjure something up for her. It was one thing he could do for her, at least, and besides, he needed something to occupy his mind. Also, he was superb at conjuring.

Determined to forget Hermione, he had worked extraordinarily hard on the dinner, and results had paid off. Roast beef. Bouillabaisse, which he remembered she liked. Oriental noodles. It was, all in all, a very odd combination of dishes, especially when you combined that with an exotic Indian drink she enjoyed but he could never remember the name of…it started with ch, or maybe a t.

But then, she had always been odd. It was one of the things he loved about her.

She stood in the doorway, her coppery brown curls framing her peaky face. She looked exhausted, he thought, and made a mental note to give her some Dreamless Sleep potion if he had to.

Her eyes lit up as she took in the sight of the veritable feast in front of her, and she looked incredulously at Draco. "How did you know—I mean—how did you—this—this is everything I like!"

Ah. So her culinary tastes hadn't changed much since her Hogwarts days.

"I'm married to you, remember?" he said, his tone deliberately dry and light; he didn't think he could bear it if he made it serious, or worse, gentle.

Oh. Now the memory hits her. Her face contorts slightly in a moue of disgust before she remembers and hides it. Great. But even if her facial expression is masked—more or less, Slytherin that he is he can still see the faint trembling of her upper lip—he can feel the waves of resent and annoyance and disgust rolling off her through their bond.

"So glad to know you're disgusted, love," he muttered.

Her eyes widened. "How did you—?"

"Later," he said. "Eat. The food will get cold."

Dazedly, she sat down, and he followed suit. She started eating immediately, and he decided not to tell her that she normally prayed beforehand. She'd had enough shocks for one day.

When the meal was over, he clapped his hand, and Kira appeared, holding a bottle of wine and two glass cups. Immediately, Hermione's face fired up.

"You have a house elf?" she cried, dismay, outrage, and curiosity warring for predominance on her face.

Oh, yeah, right, she'd been all fanatic about freeing house elves in her Hogwarts days, some nonsense about VO.M.I.T. or P.U.K.E. or something like that anyway. Luckily, once she'd seen how much the house elves suffered when he freed them, she'd given it up—at least mostly. She'd been campaigning for laws of better treatment of house elves when she'd had that accident, and she had insisted that the one house elf they did have was not overworked.

"You agreed to it, as long as I treated her—her name's Kira—well and she got paid a Galleon a month."

She still looked mutinous, but subsided, probably so she could hear about how he had known her feelings. Unhurriedly—he loved her, but that didn't mean he couldn't tease her from time to time—he uncorked the bottle of wine, pausing to appreciate the wonderful smell that wafted from it. It was vintage champagne—only the best for a Malfoy—and he poured it gently into the glasses, then handed one to Hermione. She took it with a sour expression and leaned back into an attitude that clearly proclaimed, I'm waiting.

He took a sip and paused yet again, this time to savor the exquisite taste. Then, and only then, when she was near stamping with impatience, did he speak.

"Wizarding marriages are—different—from Muggle marriages," he finally said. From the corner of his eye, he saw her bristle as though it were an insult to her heritage, and really, from the way he had treated her at Hogwarts, who could blame her?

He continued, however, as though he had not seen it. "There are varying degrees of the strength of the bond that is formed when a wizard and a witch marries. We chose the strongest."

Yet again he felt a wave of disgust, and he forced his face to stay relaxed, though he dearly wished to just curl up and hide in a corner.

_You are used to this, _he reminded himself. _This is what you face __everyday__ at your work. _The disgust of the Wizarding world over the name of Malfoy had not yet dissipated, despite the fact that Hermione Granger had married him and all the dedicated work he had done, both as an Auror and a Healer. Not to mention the fact that he was the youngest Potions Master in Britain for over a century.

The money given back had mainly been the work of Potter, and the Minister Shacklebolt, whom Potter had under his thumb.

But still, despite the taunts of those who had been the victims of his father, and the glares of those who believed he had Hermione under some sort of spell, it didn't really hurt that much—as long as he had Hermione's support.

Hermione's support.

Hermione's love. The one thing he had thought would never change, no matter what.

_Go on, _he told himself mentally._ She's not herself. Get a damn grip! _

"It created a sort of soul bond between us. I can sense whenever you are in danger, immediately and urgently. Over time, it coalesced and also grew. It climaxes when we—when we have sex," here she blushed, and he was pretty sure that under his mask, he was too, "and now I also have this vague undercurrent of where you are, what you're doing, and most importantly and most strongly, what you're feeling. I can't feel exactly what you're thinking per se, but I have a sort of emotion that emanates from you all the time. The more I concentrate, the more I can see."

When he finished his lecture, he could feel the disbelief, the outrage, the resentment, the panic, and, as always, the disgust, stronger than ever.

"Why can't I feel your emotions?" came the immediate demand.

"It is possible to block someone off," he said. "But I am not doing it," he hurried to add, as her eyes narrowed. "It is possible that since your amnesia has destroyed your love for me—" he was proud of himself as he managed to say it with a relatively steady tone—"the soul bond has blocked you off. Or perhaps you simply haven't noticed it yet. Try it, right now," he suggested. "Reach into yourself and do the normal procedure you do for controlling wandless magic."

"What?"

Right. She wouldn't have covered this in the sixth year of Hogwarts.

"Wandless magic is very imprecise and borderline uncontrolled," he said, thinking for one hilarious moment how much he sounded like Severus, "but can be, to some extent, tamed. You have to reach into yourself to find it, and delve into your inner core—"

He was interrupted by a snort. "You sound like Trelawney," she said derisively.

He closed his eyes and ran his hand through his hair. "It's not my fault," he said defensively. "I didn't make this up."

Her expression showed him that she clearly thought him capable of doing just that, just to be mean.

"Anyway, try clearing your mind of everything and trying to curl in on yourself. It helps if you breathe deeply. The technique's similar to that of Occlumency. Once you have control, however tenuous, over your wandless magic, then you can will something, say something to channel that power, and it should turn out more or less like that. It's rather unpredictable, though, so most people prefer to use wands. It's a lot stronger than the wand magic, so I prefer to use it more often. It's really a matter of willpower and choice."

He was straying off topic here.

"Anyway, try doing that and see if you can still contact the bond."

Her eyes fluttered shut, and her breathing slowed and evened. He waited patiently as her expression neutralized into the impossibly serene look of a person practicing Occlumency or wandless magic study.

He waited and waited and waited and waited, until he wondered whether she had fallen asleep. Just then, her eyes flew open, and she exclaimed, "I've done it!"

Her voice was filled with triumph and exultation, the happy satisfaction of a job well done, and he smiled at this the classic Hermione.

Then she gave a startled gasp as his emotions came pouring in. Draco cursed as he tried to pull back, but it was much too late. The flood of all his repressed love, frustration, pain, and unresolved tension came crushing in on her all at once, and she stood there with a dazed, incredulous look on her face.

The sound of his curse brought her back to herself, and after one amazed look, she fled.

"Shite!" the windows rattled as his magic lashed out at everything and anything. Before he could incinerate a portrait the way he had done last time he had lost control over his magic, or worse, burn the house down or something equally stupid, he chose the lesser evil and hurled the first thing that was handy—his half-empty wine glass—hard against the wall.

The glass shattered, drops of red flying in a half arc through the air as it made contact with the black and silver wall, shards of glass dropping to the carpet with stains of red, a noise like bells, and ironically, one of the more beautiful sounds he had heard that day, pervaded the air, as, as if in slow motion, the destruction proceeded. Draco thought it was one of the most delicate things he had ever seen, and, abstractedly, he marveled on the exquisiteness of it.

Then he lost all control and incinerated a portrait anyway.


	8. Expensive Portraits, Good Cries, Girl Th

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Seven: Expensive Portraits, Good Cries, Girl Things, And Fallen Angels

Disclaimer: Am I the only one who still writes disclaimers after seven chapters? Yes? No? Yes? Anyway, these aren't even disclaimers anymore, just vague…rambly…thingies…

A/N: As it shows in this chapter, I seriously doubt that any guys read romance. If they do, please tell me! Oh, and the quote here is from "Move Along" by All-American Rejects.

She hadn't known she hadn't known, oh Merlin, _she hadn't known. _How could she have? _You couldn't have, _said her sensible voice, the voice which had so often dominated her during her school years. And yet—and yet she felt so damn guilty…

In that moment, before he had tried to—and to some extent, succeeded—shield his emotions from her, and before she had pulled back from sheer self-defense, she had felt it all—all his love, all his pain, all his frustration.

She had felt how hurt and touchy he felt about the Wizarding world's lack of acceptance of Malfoys even now. She had remembered all the slights. How he got all the shit jobs. How the door was always just slammed in his face. How people were curt with him, refusing to make conversation with him. How he was never, ever, invited to any event. How people whispered about him not quite behind his back, how mothers pulled their children to the other side of the street when he came. How even though his Seeker skills had improved to the point where they rivaled Harry's, no Quidditch team had been willing to take him on.

And how she had come, and she had trusted him. How she had built up his trust, that fragile thing, bit by bit, nurturing it, fondling it, until it was strong enough to stand on its own.

It had taken years. Years and years or patient work. One step forward and two steps back. And then other days he'd take a giant leap forward, and they would celebrate. How slowly, Harry and Ron grew to accept him, especially since he'd saved Harry's life.

And then she had broken his entire world by slapping him that day at St. Mungo's.

And she wanted to _Avada__Kedavra_herself, or at least _Crucio_herself, because she finally understood what Harry had been telling her that day.

Finally understood just what a complex person Draco was.

Understood.

And nothing could ever erase what she had done, or her guilt over that day.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

With the proverbial twenty-twenty hindsight, Draco realized that incinerating that particular portrait may not have been a good idea. It had been one of the Four Founders, and Hermione had enjoyed chatting with them.

Of course, it had also been worth a couple hundred Galleons.

Dammit, Hermione, he cursed, you always bring out extremes in me, don't you?

Luckily, he had an exact copy of the portrait in Malfoy Manor. Not that it in any way changed the fact that a couple hundred Galleons had just gone up in smoke.

Still, it was better than turning the entirety of Hogwarts green, which had happened once when he had lost control and had been severely reprimanded by his Head of House and the Headmistress McGonagall. "Lousy old bat," he muttered resentfully. She _had _favored Gryffindors, if not as openly as his own Head.

First he reached out with his wandless magic, its tendrils—which were silver—slithering out from his core of magic and stretching over the many miles to his heirloom home. There, he performed a sort of Disillusion charm on the portrait in question, a mix of wand and wandless magic. Then, he did a simple _Accio, _which was easier on his will and also perfectly safe, since no random Muggle would be able to see it flying across the sky. If any slight movement _was _spotted, well, it was a windy day, and no doubt they would convince themselves it had been a random aberration of the clouds. Really, Muggles went to absurd lengths to deny the existence of magic, they really did.

When the portrait was safely settled in its usual place, he allowed himself a brief smile of satisfaction. It wasn't a smile, not really—he knew without looking in a mirror that his eyes had stayed iron grey—but it was as close to a smile as he could get for now.

He just hoped that Hermione wouldn't hold any of this against him.

Of all the years they had lived together, never had his curiosity tempted him more than it did now, so great was the longing to reach out with his bond and find out if she still hated him so, but he restrained himself. Somehow, he doubted that Hermione would be very pleased with him if he intruded her privacy just now.

Besides, all women needed their private 'space' when they were upset, something he had learned the hard way.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

A few hours and three piles of tissues later, Hermione heaved a great sigh and sat up straight, groaning as her back complained from the sudden strain. She had had to indulge herself in a good old-fashioned girl's cry.

(A/N: I don't expect any of the rare guys out there who actually _read _romance to understand this—it's a girl's thing)

She felt much better now that it was over. To round it all up, of course, she would have had to have a bowl of ice cream and a sappy TV show/novel, but besides that, it was a fairly good cry. For instance, it had resulted in a pink nose and red eyes, messy hair, sweaty skin, and rumpled clothing—all of which usually designates a really good full-blown cry.

There was no one reason for her crying. There never is a logical or rational reason for girls to have a really good cry. It usually coincides with lots of little stress pockets, a climaxing event that can be as petty as a lost handkerchief, and PMS. Or maybe not the last one.

For Hermione, this included: losing her memory, waking up to find out that she was ancient, married to her worst enemy, finding out the ferret-boy was human, and discovering how mean she had been to him.

She sniffed one last time before splashing cold water on her face and brushing her hair. Then she went back and sat back down on the old sofa she had transfigured; it had once been, ironically, a tissue box.

Slowly and methodically, she gathered each used tissue with the flick of her wand and levitated it to the wastebasket. When it became full, she Vanished the contents, and then returned to her previous task of either levitating or translocating the tissues one by one.

Translocating was quicker, but levitating gave her something to watch.

Not to mention the fact that translocation took considerable more willpower and wandless magic than levitation.

When she was finished, she Scourgified every inch of the sofa, then turned it back into a tissue box. When done with this as well, she looked around for something else to do, but there was nothing, so she was forced to continue contemplating what she would do next.

She had never felt so incredibly guilty before, even when she had believed that Crookshanks had eaten that dratted rat Scabbers. And anyway, he had turned out to be Pettigrew in disguise, so it would have been better for all concerned if he _had _been eaten.

Which reminded her that she knew absolutely nothing about how the War had ended—which she assumed it had, since people were either flaunting their ability to say Voldemort's name with impunity or still flinching guiltily at the mention?

So she paced, and bit her lip, and tugged at her hair, and paced, and bit her lip, and tugged at her hair until her legs were worn out and her lip was swollen and the floor was littered with strands of her hair, and _still _she could not think what to do about Draco.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Night fell.

Moonlight floated in through the open window, silver rays painting everything they touched with the delicate brush of quicksilver.

The fairy rays illuminated the man sitting there with his head in his hands, staring into the fire, eyes an enigma of pain and sorrow.

The silver lit up his hair until the platinum strands glowed moon-white, his skin dancing with the light of magic flickering from vein to vein.

He looked like a fallen angel.

_Hands so shaking cold_

_These hands weren't meant to hold_

Wondering.

Wondering whether he should go to find his wife.

Wondering whether he should leave her alone.

Wondering if he should leave her for good.

Wondering if things would ever be the way they once were.

Wondering, knowing that if he made the wrong choice now, she might never love him again.

Wondering.

After awhile, he got up, slowly, like an old man, and headed up to find his wife.


	9. Making It Right, Awkward Breakfast, a

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Eight: Making It Right, Awkward Breakfast, and Storytelling

Disclaimer: I really don't get why we have to write these things…I mean if I had any grand delusions of owning Harry Potter, I would _not _be publishing it on fanfiction, I would be going to Scholastic Books.

A/N: "I don't know, you guys," is from Sarakime's The Choice on Mugglenet. The first part of the chapter's title, Making It Right, is from Within Temptation's song "Pale."

She was still pacing when she heard the footsteps.

They were quiet, slow, and steady, stealthy almost, like a great cat on the hunt.

Except somehow she knew that he would never hurt her.

And then she started wringing her hands.

So wrapped up in her worried anticipation was she, she didn't even notice him until he cleared his throat from where he stood, leaning against one doorframe with his arms folded and an aristocratic, rather snotty look on his face which some long-buried, stirring instinct—or was it memory?—told her was a mask to cover up his true feelings.

"Hermione—" he began, but she cut him off.

"I'm so sorry," she said.

He blinked. Obviously this was not what he had expected, but rather some sort of tirade about how insensitive he had been or some sort of nonsense.

Tears stung the back of her eyes, and she shook her head furiously. Had she really been that mean to him?

The worried expression came back, and she hastened to add, "I really am. Please. I didn't know—I didn't mean to hurt you like that—it was just all such a shock—"

"Shhh," he cut her off, again, and a flash of déjà vu swept through her, as though she were watching from a great distance, her spirit soaring far above her body as she watched two figures, one on a hospital bed, the other kneeling beside her, saying the same words Draco was saying now.

"Shh. It's all right."

And, just like last time, just for a moment, a blessed reprieve, it was.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Breakfast the next morning was…awkward, with both Draco and Hermione shooting each other glances, then hastily looking away, cheeks flushed, when their eyes met. In fact, to an outside observer who knew nothing of their past, they might have been a newly made couple, shooting shy looks at each other after their first kiss.

Still, Draco decided, it was…nice. Not even close to what they had had before, but…nice. Comfortable. Even if he did squirm every time she met his gaze with those chocolate eyes that did funny things to his insides.

Homey, almost.

And it almost made him hope that she would stay with him for awhile before moving off to marry someone else.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"So tell me about how we got together," demanded Hermione, who was looking very curious. Draco looked up, startled, from his cup of coffee, which he had been enjoying, as he did every morning, with a spoonful of sugar stirred in.

For a moment, he choked slightly, spluttering just a little bit as the burning liquid slipped down his throat, then said, "What?"

"How we got together," Hermione said, rather impatiently. "Surely you remember?"

In retrospect, he thought, he should have expected this question. After all, all girls are hopeless romantics at heart, and Hermione had been very adamant about things like anniversaries and birthdays being remembered. (Though not the infamous pink and red holiday; that she could not stand.)

Still, it didn't ease the fact that he was sitting there telling his wife how they got together.

"It was the War," he began.

_"I don't know, you guys," said Hermione anxiously, peering in at the deserted corridors. "I mean, shouldn't we wait for Tonks at least? __Or Kingsley?"_

_"They're busy," said Harry. "And some of the prisoners may be dying."_

_That seemed to clinch it for Hermione, who stepped forward with her wand raised. "Then we have to split up. I'll take the right hand side corridor down here. Harry, go down the left side. Ron, go straight, all right?"_

_"Yes ma'am," said Harry, saluting with a cocky grin before taking off. _

_"Be careful, Ron," said Hermione, turning to the redhead. _

_"I always am, Mione," he said before striding down the corridor._

"You were still with him at that point," said Draco, breaking off. "And I know all this because you told me later. Luckily, you broke up with him after a while."

He sensed a slight tug from the bond which indicated that Hermione did not think it so lucky, but he resolutely ignored it and forged on with the story, though he could feel tears stinging the back of his eyes.

_Water was dripping down from the ceiling down her back, but Hermione didn't want to take the chance of her magical signature alerting any hiding Death Eaters to her presence just for a water-proof charm, so she set her teeth and resolved to wear raincoats or something over her robes next time._

_The first five cells she checked were all empty, except for blood, bits of cloth, and piles of something at which Hermione shuddered and turned away._

_Then, at the sixth cell, she heard a noise, and froze in her tracks. Silently, she raised her wand and opened the door, ready to attack at a moment's notice._

_Instead of the hooded and masked men she half expected, what she saw made her stop in her tracks. __A pile of rags with something vaguely resembling a human body inside it.__ She rushed forward._

_Pale. That was the first word that came to mind. __Pale, and fragile.__ His once shining blond hair hung limp, straggly, and dirty. His skin was stretched tight over protruding cheekbones, and his eyes, dull black, held memories of sights no boy should have to see._

_"Malfoy?' the word hung in the air. At the sound, the boy whimpered and drew back into the corner, huddling his rags around him, as if in some poor mockery of the protection he wished for._

_She stepped forward, and he shuddered all over, as if in anticipation for the pain sure to come._

_"I'm not going to hurt you," she said calmly. _

_He bowed his head in answer, and strands fell in front of his eyes. _

_"Really, I'm not," she said. "Do you remember me?"_

_Slowly, almost unwillingly, he raised his head to look her._

_She had changed since their Hogwarts days. She had, if possible, grown even skinnier, gaunt with hollows under eyes from lack of sleep, dark circles ringing them. Her hair had been turned black from constant exposure to certain dangerous Potions and spells, and had been ruthlessly attacked until it lay subdued in a bun. Her face had changed too—hardened, the heart-shape masked somehow with horrors that no girl should have to witness, let alone do. The childish freckles had faded, her figure slightly more muscled. _

_But still, he recognized her. _

_"Granger?" he croaked, disbelieving, as if an apparition from Hogwarts had come to haunt him._

_"Yes, Malfoy," she said, feeling strangely sick. "Yes, it's me."_

_Because it was wrong.__ He was supposed to be an honored Death Eater, a stupid ferret, not a weak and helpless little boy. Draco Malfoy didn't starve. Draco Malfoy didn't __whimper,__ or cringe. Draco Malfoy didn't look at her as though half expecting her to raise her wand and torture him. Draco Malfoy wasn't helpless—Draco Malfoy was better than you._

_And she needed to make it that way once more, so that all was right in the universe._

"You're a good storyteller," said Hermione once he had finished. He half-smiled at her.

"That's how we first met during the War," he said. "You brought me to Number 12 Grimmauld Place, and I recuperated there. Potter was given charge of me, but he neglected me, both out of laziness and spite—and also because he was so busy. So, in a sort of unofficial way, you started taking care of me. Three weeks later, anyone who had asked would have been told that Potter was in charge of me, but then would have been advised to go to you.

"And then I healed enough to start fighting. None you trusted me at first, really. I mean, I had the Mark and everything, and I was a Malfoy. So I was constantly guarded, mainly by you. Even after I was accepted, everyone watched me. I could feel it. You were given more and more missions with me, because we worked well together, and because no one else would agree to go with me."

He didn't mention how many times they had saved each other's lives there.

"Then I saved Potter's life."


	10. Wingardium Leviosa, Wonky Faints, and Go

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Nine: Wingardium Leviosa, Wonky Faints, and Godlike Macaroni and Salsa

Disclaimer: Sheesh, I already wrote eight of these. Must I write yet another? Oh, all right. I don't own Harry Potter. God.

**A/N: My scene of Harry's near-death scene is roughly based on Whiplash. Don't know who it's by, though, so sorry to whoever wrote it. It's D/Hr like this one. **

**Godlike macaroni and salsa is from Sammy Keyes by Van ****Draanen**** or something like that, and is starred in another of my stories, a ****oneshot**** called A Cold October Morning. **

**And. That. ****Killed.****It.****Is from Lamentations of Draco Malfoy, yet another D/Hr story.**

_"Then I saved Potter's life."_

"You what?" asked Hermione, startled.

"You heard me."

"How on earth—?"

_It was a hectic battle, this time. The little reconnaissance group they had sent had stumbled onto a large group of Death Eaters, and by the time reinforcements had arrived, it had been too late to withdraw, and they had been forced to make it a full-out battle, something they had attempted to avoid in their horrible guerrilla warfare._

_Spells were being fired left and right, some whizzing just barely past Hermione's ear as she ducked and weaved around jets of light, all the while shooting spells in return. The Death Eaters had the advantage of a greater and more dangerous arsenal of weapons, while the Order mainly stuck to the relatively harmless Stupefies and Body-Binds, among other things._

_Even if Draco's spells __were usually just this side__ of Dark._

_Then she saw it. _

_It was a like a very bad replay of the scene in the girl's bathroom during their first year, the kind of scene only a cheesy director would put in a movie._

_Dreamlike she watched as the troll bore down on Harry, its brutish, animalistic face grunting its excitement and bloodlust. _

_Even as she raised her wand to combat yet another Death Eater, her gaze stayed fixed on Harry as he struggled to use a spell, any __spell, that__ would work on the tough hide of the Troll. _

_Almost as though she were in class, her hand almost rising of its own accord, answers ran through Hermione's head, and she desperately urged him, trying for the telepathy that was sometimes possible with wandless magic. _

_It didn't work._

_Harry continued stumbling over spells until the Troll was on top of him. It bent over to pick him up. Hermione had heard about the dreadful things trolls did to their __prey,__ and she screamed. _

_Feebly Harry raised his wand one last time for a last swish and flick, his wrist moving slightly, and like a dream Hermione thought, 'No, no, Harry, Wingardium Levi-_oh_-__sa__, not Wingardium __Levio-_sa._'_

_The incantation failed; the troll grabbed the wand from Harry's hand and tossed it aside; it began to bring its mace down on the struggling raven-haired figure._

_Then there was a streak of white, a sonic boom, a crash, and then—silence._

_The Death Eaters were gone, apparated away._

_The troll was flung back, his head having hit a rock, unconscious a few yards back._

_Two figures lay still._

"What happened?" asked Hermione.

"Well," said Draco, feeling rather flattered at her obvious curiosity. "I was just quick enough so the mace hit me, not Harry. Then my wandless magic exploded, and I guess I made a kind of explosion or something. The Death Eaters panicked, Snape told me later, and thought that maybe more reinforcements had arrived, so they fled.

"I didn't die, obviously. Neither did Harry, but the mace hurt me pretty bad. Luckily Madam Pomfrey had left Hogwarts by then, or I might be paralyzed from the waist down."

Hermione stared at him, and Draco thought rather bitterly that she seemed unflatteringly surprised that he would have risked his life for Potter's. Didn't she see that he had wanted to win the war as much as anyone else, that he would have died just so Potter could go on and kill Voldemort, that he _respected _Potter as a person to boot?

No, he thought. She didn't.

And. That. Killed. It.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Hermione stared up at the ceiling, chewing over what Draco had said. After his saving of Harry's life, he had been more accepted, though she could tell that the Wizarding world still suspected him, and they had grown close, until during one of their many solo missions, just him and her, after the thrill of completing one of them and on the way of flying back home, he had kissed her, exultantly, with their triumph still running in their veins.

Everything had escalated from there.

Molly had been disappointed. Ron had been relieved, because he was eyeing Pansy, another renegade Slytherin, if enraged that it was 'the good-for-nothing ferret.' And maybe he hadn't been as enraged as he let one, because when Ginny went out with Blaise a few weeks later, he hadn't said a word.

The relationships had flourished during the War, and when Harry had defeated Voldemort on that awful battlefield of red in that awful flash of green, and they had left half their side on that fateful day, they had been more prepared to be married than many other couples having dated for six years or more. Living together, fighting together, knowing you have to trust the other implicitly or your death is imminent, does something to people. It ties them with a bond deeper than words will allow. And so, at twenty one, Draco and Hermione were married, followed quickly by Harry and Cho, Ron and Pansy, and Blaise and Ginny.

And apparently, they had been happily married until now.

And for some reason, Hermione felt incredibly guilty for going and mixing herself up in that Potions accident and losing her memory. If only…if only she didn't get the sense that he was holding something back from her about that Potions business.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Downstairs, a moon-white-haired man paced up and down his study, his face betraying his agitation as he only allowed it to do in solitude like this.

He should tell her—but he couldn't.

He felt guilty enough as it was.

But what would Hermione think of him if she knew that the Potions accident was all his fault?

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

He thought about calling her down for lunch but decided against it. If she wanted it, she would come down; surely she could smell the food cooking from up there. Carefully, deliberately, he made macaroni and cheese and mixed it with salsa; it was another odd dish that she enjoyed, and they had dubbed it 'godlike.'

He left it out for her with a warming charm so that it wouldn't cool, setting it carefully at the bottom of the stairs where she would see if before she stepped on it.

He ate his own dish with little enjoyment. It was really very little fun to eat it without joking with Hermione over the funniness of the dish, or the ridiculous use of the word 'godlike' for such a stupid meal, or chatting together.

He threw it away half-full and went away to work out his stress on his Starseeker broom. He needed to fly.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

From her window Hermione watched him dive and swoop with unlimited pleasure on his broom, soaring in until he could have bent down and touched the ground, then pulling out at the last moment in a superb Wonky Faint, or whatever it was called.

(A/N: Five points to whoever leaves the proper name of it first in a review.)

She could _feel _how much he loved flying, and thought of how much he must love her to give up flying to sit by her bedside for three whole months.

She smiled as she ate the dish of macaroni and salsa by the window. It was sweet of him, she thought, to make all her favorite dishes for her. She supposed that she should cook something for him as well, but however well the twenty-six-year-old Hermione may have cooked, the sixteen-year-old hadn't the faintest idea of how to cook anything but a cup of tea.

So instead, she smiled and watched the blond Slytherin maneuver in the air and ate her macaroni and salsa, and smiled and watched him some more.


	11. Lonely Slytherins, Memories, Misguide

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Ten:

Disclaimer: Waaaah…in this vague rambly sort of thingamabobber in which I get to wail about the fact that I do not own Harry Potter, I am about to grandly announce that I do not own Harry Potter!...oh wait, I already said that…oops, my bad…just ignore that.

A/N:

"A Pensieve?"

"What?" asked Harry defensively. "I just thought it would be a good idea."

"No, it is, Harry, it really is, and I'm really glad you thought of it—"

"Actually, it was Blaise and Pansy, seems they miss having you around—"

"—but where did you get one? Aren't they really expensive or something?"

"I'm borrowing Snape's. He said that he was getting used to having a little know-it-all around. Knowing him, that's as close to his saying, 'I miss you,' as he's going to get. Be flattered."

"Oh, I am," Hermione assured him. "Wait…Blaise and Pansy?"

"See, you already knew Ginny, Cho, and me, but you didn't know or like them when you were sixteen, so they're getting tired of being awkward around you. You guys were pretty close, you know. Speaking of Slytherins, how's—you know."

Harry made a furtive motion toward the door, through which sounds could be heard of clanking dishes; the Slytherin was making tea.

"I'm working on it, Harry," Hermione said tiredly. "Please, don't press me. I'm doing the best I can. But seriously, thanks for the Pensieve. I think it's a really great idea. Goodbye!"

"Bye, Mione. I miss you, you know. The twenty-six you, I mean. Come back soon."

With that, he vanished into the Floo, leaving only a Pensieve and a trail of glittering green dust to show that he had ever been there.

"What was it?" asked Draco, coming in with a cup of steaming tea in either hand. Hermione took one gratefully as he sank down into the armchair which Harry had just vacated with the other cup of tea.

"Harry left me a Pensieve," said Hermione wonderingly. "Apparently Snape lent it to him."

"He's very fond of you, you know," said Draco quietly. "Even though he might not show it. Severus was going to be the godfather if we ever had a child."

"Oh," said Hermione. Her last memories of Snape were of great greasy bat of the dungeons, breathing down her back and grading her perfect potions unfairly.

"Yes," said Draco, who seemed to know what she was thinking. "Oh."

"So," said Hermione brightly. "Harry said you might lend me your memories of what happened so I could sort of remember them, you know?"

"Oh. Yes. Right." said Draco. "I guess I should."

And he sat down and put his wand to his temple.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

It took a long time, so in the middle Hermione got up and wandered off. Draco didn't mind, though he wished she could have stayed. It wasn't pretty reliving all those memories, and still, the training of Lucius doing its work over half a decade later, he didn't want her to see his weakness.

It was late at night when he finished, both mentally and physically exhausted. He had relived everything, from his torture to their first kiss to the day when he had proposed and they had started snogging in earnest, to the day when the old wizard priest had pronounced them man and wife and their special night afterwards.

Recalling some of the finer details of that night had given rise to both a flush and, to his embarrassment, a magnificent hard-on. To be sure, he hadn't so much as kissed his wife for three months.

She had been a virgin; he had not. He remembered sleeping around with so many girls during his Hogwarts years and had apologized profusely to his wife, who cried but admitted that it was nothing she didn't know about.

What he had not, and never would, tell her, was that he had been given to the Death Eaters for their enjoyments several times after he had so disappointed Lucius and Voldemort, first by failing to kill Dumbledore, then by deliberately disobeying Voldemort's command to let a few Muggles go.

It was in the past.

She would never need to know.

Moving on past that night, when they had first made love, and she had pleasured him beyond what he had thought a virgin could do, he had put in millions of little trifling memories which he treasured so much. The day when they discovered they both loved macaroni and salsa, and they had put their heads together and brainstormed the adjective 'godlike' for it. The day when she took him ice skating for the first time and he discovered that he loved it. The day when he took her flying and she overcame her fear of heights.

So many little things, and yet it was the little things that had kept him alive during those awful three months when he hadn't known whether she would live or die, and the awful days immediately following when she had slapped him, and the days now that ate away at him like a dull ache.

His rigid, if unorthodox, Slytherin's sense of honor had forced him to sprinkle in their worse times together along with the happy; he could not have gone on without showing her their rockier moments and not felt guilty.

It had not been happy; reliving each of their fights had gone against all he had struggled to do during their time together, and the insults they had hurled at each other had stung as though it had been yesterday.

He shook his reflections off and went up to tell Hermione that her Pensieve was ready. He knew that he would wait up until she was finished, no matter how long it took. He also knew that when she was done and she went back upstairs to sleep, he would curl up outside her door as he had done every night since she came home, his heart and bond demanding that he be as close to her as possible.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

She looked up from the book she had been poring over—_Regaining__ Your Memory After Memory Losses: How To Overcome Amnesia, Memory Charms, Alzheimer's, and Much, Much more—_at Draco's knock.

Through the thin curtain of copper-brown bangs and eyelashes she saw his lips quirk up in a half-smile at her typical Hermione-ness in looking for the answers in a book, even though the practical, Wizarding answer was at her disposal.

Her brown eyes felt gritty, as though sand had been carefully, meticulously rubbed into them by the sure hand of a Potions Master, and without a jolt she realized that she—and Draco—had been up for hours. Her back complained as she stretched it, looking reproachfully at the blond Slytherin.

"You should have gone back to sleep," she said.

He said nothing, only looked at her inscrutably with those grey eyes until she squirmed under his gaze and admitted, "I would have done the same."

Still he said nothing. Self-consciously, she put down her thick tome on the dresser and got up, slipping her bare feet into fuzzy cotton slippers a shade of pale blue, slightly worn in patches where the fuzz was coming off from much usage. She realized that she was wearing nothing but a form-fitting, see-through, revealing T-shirt and slacks and blushed, even though she knew that this was nothing he hadn't seen before.

Still, she tied a purple dressing gown over it before slipping completely out from under the covers. From his half-amused, half pained gaze, she guessed that he knew what she was thinking and that it simultaneously made him want to laugh at her misguided modesty and wince at the fact that she felt uncomfortable about him.

She sighed as she padded across the floor and out the door which he held open for her. Quietly, she shuffled down the stairs until she caught sight of the Pensieve, glimmering with silver mysteries up to the brim, calling, alluring with its quicksilver promises.

It stood in the middle of the living room, its mysterious depths beckoning, the wild call of a siren, or a Veela.

Almost dazedly, trance-like, she started forward, all traces of sleepiness long gone, leaving only the promise of a mystery well-solved and the satisfaction of knowledge gained.

She took a deep breath and leaned over the Pensieve.


	12. Worrying Slytherins, Pensieves and Narni

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Eleven: Worrying Slytherins, Pensieves and Narnia, and Trust

Disclaimer: Nope, lemme check…not mine.

A/N: Yup here it is—finally she gets to 'remember' her time with Draco! Yay!...sort of, anyway… Next chapter is the first kiss.

He hovered at the top of the stairs, his bare feet silently pacing back and forth, stealthy as only a great cat or a Slytherin could be. How he wanted to go downstairs, to be with her now. He desperately wanted to comfort her if she needed it, laugh with her, cry with her—but he knew she needed to do this on her own. Still his heart and his mind raged on in a battle which, always before, his mind had won. Finally they settled on a compromise, and he sat down on the stair, his back against the banister, there to spend the night worrying.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

It was odd being in a Pensieve. It was as though she was a spirit, unencumbered with any body, able to drift from whatever perspective she wished, yet she could clearly see her body. For a while she played around, zooming back and forth and going up and down as though she were examining a new and fancy camera, and then she settled down to watch the memory in earnest.

_"Harry," said Hermione. "You have to understand. He's a danger! Yes, I know I was the one who saved him back there—but I couldn't help it! It was instinct kicking in. Now that I've had time to logically sort it all out, I know that you have to kill him. We can't spare the time or manpower to guard him all the time, and there's no way to trust him. I don't like the idea of cold-blooded murder anymore than you do, but I don't think we have any other choice."_

_"You could trust me, you know," __came__ a drawling voice from the doorway._

_Both the raven-haired boy and the exhausted girl whipped around, their wands out and pointed at the blond Slytherin._

_"You're not supposed to be out of your room," said Harry in a steely voice._

_The other boy ignored it and went on, "Supporting me, Potter? I'm touched, really I am."_

_"Shut it, Malfoy."_

_"But really," he said, dropping all signs of mockery or otherwise, his face turning deadly serious. "You could try trusting me."_

_"Trust you?" scoffed Hermione, and even Harry looked amused._

_"You've doped me with Veritaserum until I could barely think, let alone lie," said Malfoy reasonably. "Why won't you trust that I'm telling the truth?"_

_"You're an Occlumens," said Harry shortly. __"And Snape's prodigy at that.__ He told me that you were well on your way to being better than he was. Occlumens can fight off the effects of Veritaserum. Besides, he also told me how well-versed you were in the Dark Arts. Following Daddy's footsteps, aren't you? For all we know, you might have a Dark way to fight off Veritaserum."_

_"Even if that were true," said Malfoy, "which, incidentally, it isn't, I couldn't fight off that much Veritaserum. I am a proficient Occlumens, but even Dumbledore or Snape couldn't fight off that much __Veritaserum,__ and I didn't even try. I'm not stupid. It could incapacitate me for days if I tried and failed."_

_Harry looked at Hermione. "He is right, you know," she said grudgingly. _

_"I don't like you, Malfoy," said Harry. "I don't trust you either. But I don't want to kill you and I'm willing to toy with the idea that you _might _be capable of changing."_

_"I'll work with what I've got," Malfoy said. "Maybe later, I'll be able to convince you that I've changed."_

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Hermione paused before diving off to examine the new memory, and mentally readjusted the settings as she had read about. Now it was as though her spirit was wandering a forest much like the one described in _The Magician's Nephew _in the Chronicles of Narnia that she had so enjoyed as a child. Pools of glimmering substance that was like water and yet different, almost quicksilver or moonlight, lay scattered around the clearing. The glen had a sort of dreamlike quality to it, as though unnaturally hushed and waiting. Quietly, she moved from pool to pool, memory to memory, until she found one that seemed to beckon her in.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

_"What were you thinking, Harry?" the redhead's face was suffused with anger; his veins looked near to popping, and his face was swiftly changing color to match his hair. His temper was fueled by the fact that Malfoy was looking as impeccable as ever, a slight expression of distaste on his face, unmoved by the display of fury that Ron was putting on._

_"You should have killed him the moment we found him!"_

_"Ron," said Hermione, trying to keep calm. "You wouldn't have if you had seen him then. He was dying."_

_"You should have let him! He killed Dumbledore! HE KILLED BILL!"_

_The room froze. __As one, Harry and Hermione's heads swiveled to face Malfoy.__ His face, if possible, had gone even whiter, chalky. His grey eyes had shuttered to a dull black, and he bowed his head, his platinum locks falling forward to shield his face._

_"Malfoy?" asked Harry._

_Finally the ex-Slytherin raised his head; all vestiges of pride or dignity had vanished, leaving only the stark trace of what he had been. His face was ravaged, the product of nightmares and regrets that haunted him still. _

_"It was at the beginning," he said, his voice choked. "I was still trying to prove myself after I failed to kill Dumbledore. The Dark—Voldemort sent us all out on raids, but I never killed anyone, or tortured really. He was getting mad because I was sticking to, well, mainly schoolboy hexes, maybe a few Dark jinxes here and there, nothing really serious, nothing Madam Pomfrey couldn't heal easily. The most dangerous curse I ever cast was Sectumsempra, and that one missed. _

_"And then your brother came charging up out of nowhere, and he started firing curses at me. I was trying to defend myself, but I was already hurt. One of your Order members did something, I don't know what, and I got a huge gash on my side. So I was being a lot slower than usual, and I think he could see it in my face, and we both knew that if I didn't do something quick I was going to die. _

_"So then—I fired the Sectumsempra curse again, and it hit him in the chest. It was awful. There was blood everywhere, and his face was so pale. I thought I was going to be sick, but then I couldn't, because __**he **__was there, and then he just said, 'Finish it.'_

_And I was sure I couldn't do it, because I'd never been able to before. But then your brother just looked at me, and I knew he was hurting—"_

_Here Harry looked ashamed._

_"—and he nodded his head, sort of, slightly, and I raised my wand and I—I did it. I killed him. He looked so strange just lying there, with his head flopped back and his mouth open, like a rag doll or a dummy or something. There was blood still bubbling out of his chest, and then I really was sick._

_"After that, I couldn't even jinx any Muggles, and I was no good on the battlefield. That was when my father and Voldemort were really angry with me, and that was when I stopped being a Death Eater and started being a prisoner."_

_They were all staring at him, Harry, Hermione, and Ron, their eyes stark and dark against their pale faces, and Hermione could feel, somehow, Malfoy's shame, his self-hate, and the fear that this would turn them against him and they would kill him or worse, leave him for the Death Eaters to find again._

_It was Hermione who stepped forward first, perhaps because she had known Bill less than either of the two boys, or perhaps because she was most sympathetic. _

_She hugged him slightly, and his face was incredulous as he stared at the arms encircling him. He was stiff, awkward, __unsure__ of what to do with his body, as though he had never been hugged before._

_They let go quickly, and he stared at her as though he had never seen her before. Then Harry stepped forward, and left the room, with Ron in tow. It had been brief—nothing but a quick hand on the shoulder, the way guys do. _

_But it had been enough._

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Hermione surfaced and skimmed memory after memory, skipping through the ones until she found the one she wanted.

_"Malfoy."_

_"Granger."_

_There was silence for awhile as they stared at the stars. "You notice that it's always me who gets sent on the missions with you?"_

_"__Mmhmm__," __came__ the nonchalant answer._

_"Why?"_

_"Ask Shacklebolt," said Malfoy. "Or Lupin, or Tonks, or Potter, or Moody, or whoever the hell it is who sends us on these Merlin-awful missions."_

_"Yes," said Hermione, "but you know why. I know you do."_

_The boy sighed, leaning his head back as he watched his constellation, the Dragon, in the night sky. "Because," he said. "We work well together."_

_"And?" she prompted._

_His answer was so quiet that she almost missed it when it finally came. "No one else will."_

_Hermione stared at him; it was not the answer she had been expecting. "What?"_

_"Don't make me say it twice, Granger," he growled. _

_"But why?"_

_"Do you trust me, Granger?" he asked suddenly. It was random, but she was used to his quirks and knew that sooner or later, it would lead to the answer she wanted. _

_She shifted uncomfortably on the grass. There had indeed been an unspoken trust between them, the kind of trust that grows between people who share a close living space for many days on end, by themselves, and who daily place their lives in each other's hands. Many times Hermione had had to trust him implicitly or risk getting them both killed. But they had never mentioned it, never brought it up before. It had been a tacit agreement between them to keep it silent, keep it safe. Because of that ugly fact that had been taboo for so long._

_Because no one else did._

_"Why are you asking me now?" she queried._

_"Do you, Granger?" he asked again, and now she could see the vulnerability shining in his grey eyes, the bare trust, and she shivered with the knowledge that it had been granted to no one else before._

_"Yes," she answered finally._

_"You're the exception," he said semi-bitterly. __"Because no one else does."_

_"But you saved Harry's life!"_

_"So?"_

_It should have been the all-damning clincher to clinch it all. He was, after all, the Boy-Who-Had-Saved-The-Boy-Who-Lived. _

_"Who knows?" he asked. "Not many. They keep it hush-hush."_

_"But why?" she asked again._

_"Because it ruins their image of me," he said. "The image of traitor, the image of snapping ferret, the image of the boy they can safely hate without fear of retribution because one step out of line from me and I'm gone."_

_She fell silent again. She wasn't blind; she had seen the looks, the accidental shoves, the pinches, the trip hexes sent his way by anonymous well-wishers._

_"Did you know that my food is always cold?" he asked. __"Always, no matter what.__ Sometimes there's sand sprinkled in it too."_

_And she had just thought that he wasn't hungry._

_"My sheets are freezing too. My clothes—if I want them clean, I have to wash them myself. The warm water is always gone by the time I get in the shower. Little things of mine disappear."_

_She stared at him again._

_"They need someone to hate," he said. __"Someone to take out their frustration on, so they don't get over-excited and recklessly wreck their missions._

_"If it means that I'm a little uncomfortable, I can deal with it. __As long as we win the War."_

_"But that's barbaric!" she said. "It's just as bad as what the Death Eaters are."_

_"No," he said. "No, it's much better. And if it means that I won't go back to them, I'll take it. __Gladly.__ None of them trust me except you, Hermione," he said. It was the first time he had said her name. __"Tonks and Lupin, maybe.__Possibly Potter and Weasley.__No one else.__ Lupin knows what it's like to be suspected; he's __a werewolf. Tonks is my cousin. I saved Potter, and Weasley would follow Potter into hell and beyond. And then __there's__ you. You trust me._

_"And I trust you."_

_He fell silent after that admission, and Hermione knew how hard it had been for him to say it. There was nothing to say to that, and after awhile they got up in silence, to pack their belongings and sleep in the tent, ready to take on the Death Eaters the next day._

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	13. First Kiss and First Argument

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Twelve: First Kiss and First Argument

Disclaimer: The day I own Harry Potter is the day you see Voldemort dress up in a pink frilly tutu and do the hoolo-hoola.

A/N: Hooray! Finally we get to it—their first kiss! (Drumroll please) Please tell me what other memories I should use! Ideas welcomed!

He was getting a crick in the back of his neck, and his spine was complaining about the unnatural position in which he was forcing it against the wooden carvings of the railing, but still he stayed there, hunched over, listening intently for any sign of distress from below. Waiting.

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_It had been the second mission after that—or was it the third? As Draco's remembrance faded, Hermione felt the stirrings of confusion, but pushed them down in favor of the memory. They had just successfully infiltrated a stake-out of the Death Eaters and busted a small gathering—maybe five or ten—to recover the map, a map much like the Marauder's Map, but on a greater scale, of all London and its surrounding country. There had been many maps made like that. Lupin's experience had been called into help, with Harry and Hermione joining in. Draco had also started helping; his experience with the many magical artifacts from __Borgin__ and Burke's had been of much help. _

_The map was safely tucked away in her robe, and Hermione was laughing with excitement, because she had, in addition to the map, secured Rowena Ravenclaw's diadem, something they had long suspected was a Horcrux. _

_As they sped out on brooms to avoid the anti-apparition wards, her face was flushed with satisfaction and triumph at a mission well-done. Draco, glancing back at her, saw her and thought that she was more beautiful than anything he had ever seen. A curse came whizzing at them, and he rolled and dodged to escape the jet of light. As more and more Death Eaters regained the use of their brooms, curses and hexes came faster and faster._

_Dodging and ducking, rolling and diving, Draco managed to avoid most of them, while Hermione was, due to her lack of skill on a broom, forced to mainly shield them. He could sense her level of lowering energy as time after time, each curse forced to be blocked took yet another toll on her magical energy, until finally her shield shattered and the jet of light went through._

_Time stopped as there was an explosion. Fragments of shattered wood went flying through the air, and valuable time was lost as Draco was forced to dodge the potentially fatal jagged edges._

_Then the cold tendrils of fear crept around him as he saw the falling figure of brown and black. They had learned the levitation charm, but she had been too tired to activate it, and now she was falling. Later he __would claim, ashamed of his __sentimentality, that__ he had been reluctant to lose a partner and the magical objects which she held, but at the moment, all he could think was that Hermione was falling._

_Without pausing, he set his broom in a nosedive at an almost 180 degrees angle as the ground rushed up to him. Mentally thanking Merlin that Lupin had seen fit to outfit him with a Firebolt, he reached the near-unconscious girl and swept her up on the broom by the back of her robes, which tore slightly but held firm. As he swept up and away from the pursuing Death Eaters—he realized with satisfaction that he had just executed a flawless __Wronski__ Feint—he looked back at the shivering girl and realized with incredulity that she was laughing._

_As he watched her flushed and smiling face, adrenaline rushed through his veins, along with another, more powerful, emotion, and suddenly, impulsively, without knowing even why, he leaned in and captured her lips with a kiss._

_It was passionate. Sparks of electricity—or was it magic?—flew throughout the air, and his whole body tingled as she returned his kiss. _

_They broke apart, faces red, hair mussed, robes in disarray, then immediately plunged back in for another, as over the countryside of England, a girl and a boy kissed. Behind them were Death Eaters, calling for revenge. Ahead was rough country until they reached Number 12 Grimmauld Place. Below were thousands of feet of empty air. But all else faded in light of their first kiss. _

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Back in the unearthly clearing, Hermione blinked rapidly, trying to quell the sudden rush of emotion she had felt. Draco had told her about their kiss, but it was quite…different from the telling, no matter how good it might have been, and she found to her embarrassment that her nipples had turned hard.

What was even more unexpected, though, was the overwhelming—what was it exactly? She thought it might be love, but how could she love someone she barely knew, and negatively at that? Caring? Remembrance? _Something _in her body had responded quite violently to that kiss, and it led Hermione to hope that maybe, just maybe, she would get her memories back.

For some reason, living and ignoring her past life seemed out of the option as it had not seemed since that first day when she woke up at St. Mungo's. In the beginning she had thought that perhaps she could start anew and ignore the truth that she did not want to face, but now it seemed no longer viable.

She took a deep breath and plunged into yet another pool.

From the stairs, a blond Slytherin stared at his shaking hands and tried desperately to quell the overwhelming mental and physical urge to go to his wife.

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_"What's wrong, Hermione?" asked the half man, half boy who sat on the sofa. Hermione's twenty-six-self vaguely noticed that he sat primly, properly, almost like one of those ladies in Victorian portraits, as __though afraid to let himself loose, but at the same time giving the impression that he owned, not only the sofa, but the entire room._

_Hermione looked down and saw her twenty-year-old self sitting stiffly, turned away from him. "What do you mean what's wrong?" she asked in a voice as stiff as her posture._

_"You aren't talking to me," he said. "You're ignoring me and avoiding me too."_

_"Well, it's not like you would notice," she flared out suddenly, whirling around on him, her brown hair crackling and her eyes snapping fire._

_"What do you mean?" he asked, genuinely surprised. _

_"You never talk to me!" she yelled. "You never hug me, or anything! You always just sit there and look at me, and you never show anything, you never say that you love me, and you make me wonder if you'd even care if I died! You just sit there like a great lump! Is it so hard to show me, to tell me that you love me?"_

_He sat there, staring at her, his grey eyes wide and bleak against his face, utterly stunned._

_She went on. "How do you think it makes me feel when Harry hugs Cho, or when Remus tells Tonks that he loves her? How do you think it makes me feel when Molly smiles at Arthur over dinner? When Fred and Angelina, or George and Alicia exchange those soppy looks?"_

_"They're very soppy and annoying," said Draco mildly._

_"BETTER SOPPY AND ANNOYING THAN COLD AND HATEFUL!" she yelled. "Sometimes, you make me wonder, DO YOU EVEN LOVE ME?" _

_"Aren't you going to say anything?" she demanded, after a long silence in which it seemed that Draco's world was falling apart. _

_Still he sat, and stared, as though he couldn't quite believe what she was saying. _

_"You know something?" she said conversationally. "You sicken me. You're sick. You can't even let go of your stupid Malfoy pride long enough to just try and keep your girlfriend. You're terrified of just, for once in your life, not being a Malfoy. And you know what? I guess that's the way you should be, because it seems you can't be anything else. __Once a Malfoy, always a Malfoy, huh?"_

_Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater, the silence seemed to say, and the unspoken words hung heavy in the air. _

_"I think we need some time apart," she said finally._

_Then she turned and walked away, and Hermione could feel Draco's pain, and sorrow, and confusion. He hadn't meant to ignore her, or appear cold. In fact, he'd tried—tried so hard he would wake up screaming during the night, shaking from the nightmares that still plagued his dreams. Tried even __though Lucius's voice still whispered about his ears, susurrations of hate and contempt, the reminder that no matter what he did, he was never cold enough, never controlled enough, to be a Malfoy, telling him to hold it in, to never be weak, to never show anyone that he cared._

_Tried, and now, it appeared, failed._

_He sat there for a long time, still in that strange, awkward, stiff position, staring at the spot where she had told him that his life was over, until the fire died down and the last rays of the sun vanished from the windows, and people came and went and glanced at the ex-Death Eater and went away. Sat there until finally, finally, slowly like an old man, he got up went to his room, a little niche in the attic. It had originally been a supply closet, but it had been emptied because no one had wanted to share a room with him. _

_He went in and closed the door and curled up on his bed under the covers and lay there, shaking, for a long, long time._

_The sun rose, and morning came, and still he didn't get up. At the breakfast table, Hermione didn't show up either, and the rest of the occupants of the magically expanded Number 12 Grimmauld Place figured that they were sleeping in after a lovers' night. Harry paid Fred and George three Galleons because he had bet that they wouldn't sleep together until their wedding night._

_It was lunch, and they still hadn't shown up. Fred and George snickered, but Remus looked worried. _

_It was dinner, and Hermione came to the table with red eyes and an expression that dared anyone to ask. Fred and George gave back the three Galleons to Harry. _

_It was night time, and still Draco hadn't shown up._

_It was breakfast the next day, and Tonks went up and banged on the door of the little closet. There was no response, and she went downstairs with her hair turned back to mousy brown and a worried expression on her face._

_Remus went up a few hours later, and called to Draco in a gentle voice, but got no response and went down looking even more troubled. _

_The morning of the next day, they attempted to use __Alohomora__ on the door but discovered that Draco had __warded__ his room so securely that it was near impossible to break them. _

_Just before lunch, Harry, Snape, Remus, and Minerva used their combined strength and blasted the door inward, while Hermione maintained a freezing, but worried distance._

_They discovered the boy huddled under the bed, frightened by the explosion, hyperventilating and in shock. It was __Harry__ who coaxed him out, but he was still shuddering, and he refused to step out of the room, shivering in his bed until Harry grew exasperated. Draco shrank back, blind panic in his eyes, and it was then that Harry used Legilimency. As Harry had pointed out before, Draco was an extremely __experience Occlumens, but he was tired, and weak, and half-conscious, and Harry entered his mind with little difficulty. _

_Memories of Lucius, Voldemort, and deaths flashed before Harry's eyes in rapid sequence, combined with an overwhelming sense of self-loathing and fear, fear, fear. Harry probed a little deeper and saw the recent memory of Hermione and their confrontation a few days back. He pulled back, leaving Draco shivering, and went in search of Hermione._

_Hermione's eyes were red, and she was pale, and crying, and Harry found that he didn't have the heart to yell at her as he had planned. Instead, he calmly and gently told her what he had found in Draco's mind._

_Hermione blanched and went running to the supply closet in the attic._

_In the end, it took four days to coax the shivering Slytherin out of his room, and he was an emotional wreck for days afterwards. He was like a whipped puppy, cringing at the slightest sound, and it took weeks for him to return to his previous state._

_She never yelled at him again._

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Hermione found that her eyes were stinging, and she resurfaced quickly even as she wondered how Draco had relived all this. He was stronger, she knew, and it was obvious that he had healed since that day, three months into their dating.

But sweet Circe, she hadn't known, she _hadn't known, _and even knowing what she had of Draco's history, it cut her to the chase as she tried to figure out why, even after she had hurt him so much, Draco still stayed with her.

A man shivered on the top of stairs as he paced back and forth in a futile attempt to warm himself. He had forgotten both his wand and his coat, but he found himself unable to go back and get them, and leave even this modicum of nearness he had with his wife. Instead he sank back down on the stairs and curled up within himself, waiting.


	14. Ice Princes, Winter Weddings, Leaf Fight

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Thirteen: Ice Princes, Winter Weddings, Leaf Fights, and the Muggle Way

Disclaimer: Nope, don't own it, don't care…well maybe a little.

A/N: Thanks to BlewStar101 for the wedding idea and ice sculptures, as well as the leaf fight!

Hermione stepped up to yet another pool and gazed entranced at its misty depths. Flickers of white and blue swirled in with the silver, and somehow she knew that this was important. She took a deep breath and entered.

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_"Oh Merlin, Merlin, Merlin," Hermione was panicking full-blast __now,__ she was pacing back and forth and wringing her hands desperately._

_"Calm down, Hermione," laughed Pansy, her glittering red lips curling up in a teasing smile. _

_"How CAN you be so calm, Pans?" asked the frantic Hermione. "What if something goes wrong? What if the ice sculptures melt? What if my dress is ruined? My hair won't lie flat, and I'm so worried about Harry. I know he means well and everything, but what if he ruins it or something? Maybe I should have gone with Blaise for best man? I mean, he's really calm and everything, and he's so much better with—"_

_What Blaise was so much better with the twenty-six-year-old Hermione never found out, because at that moment Pansy stepped in, laughing, __her__ own dark hair cascading perfectly down her white shoulders._

_"Hermione, it's all right. Everything's going to be all right. Draco paid a hundred Galleons for those ice sculptures and the Freezing Charms on them. You double-checked all of them yesterday. It's all right. Okay? Your hair is perfect, too. I love the way you brought out the red in them, and your dress will not be ruined."_

_"__Ohhhh__, Pansy, I swear, I will get back at you for this during your own wedding," muttered Hermione, her hands frantically flying to her hair._

_Pansy opened her mouth, but Cho cut her off. "Hermione, it's okay. Do you really think Draco would let his wedding be messed up?"_

_Hermione opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again with a smile. "Thanks, Cho, when you put it like that…"_

_She trailed off, and with one last look in the mirror, opened the door…_

_The room was splendid. It was a winter wedding, for more reasons than one. Hermione would always remember the spring wedding pictures of her parents that had ended so tragically in divorce for them when she had been __twelve,__ and Draco had never liked spring weddings for the simple reason that they were 'disgustingly happy' and 'normal.'_

_Outside, thanks to a few complicated Weather charms, it was snowing slightly, flurries of little snowflakes drifting slowly down. The walls were ice blue, a shade liked by both Draco and Hermione. Careful charms and __glamours__ had given them a glazed, cracked, translucent effect, giving the look of __a__ ice palace. From the ceiling dangled a million pieces of cracked ice, sparkling, dazzling, shattering light and throwing it around in fragments of blinding beauty. The floor was carpeted with a million snowflakes; ice sculptures lined the bridal walk and walls. They were exquisite forms of unearthly beauty, and Hermione felt the delightful chill that ran down her spine each time she saw them._

_Laughing, she spread her arms and twirled around and around as the wedding guests began coming in. It was rather simple and private; while the public had respect for Hermione Granger, they had none for the infamous Draco Malfoy, and both Hermione and Draco had agreed to keep it private. _

_Nevertheless, Draco's pride would not let his wedding be anything but the best, and Hermione, longing for the dream wedding of every girl, had eagerly agreed. _

_Harry smiled at her, wearing formal robes and looking quite handsome; Cho, Pansy, and Ginny were the bridesmaid in ice blue, and they held fragile narcissi flowers. Hermione wore silver white, to go with the black of her husband-to-be._

_She stared at the man across from her, looking unearthly handsome, and wondered why and how she had gotten this dream wedding._

_No parents stood on Draco's side; __no__ friends but Pansy and Blaise for him, no one to stand up for him but Severus. Hermione's parents were dead, killed during the War that had ravaged Muggle and wizard alike, but Remus was there for her, a father figure in the days before, to give her away, and Molly had been a mother to them all._

_"I take thee, Hermione Granger…"_

_"I take thee, Draco Malfoy…"_

_Hermione's twenty-six-year-old self felt the joy of her old self and the joy of Draco mingled as one, so overwhelming and intense that it left no room for any other feeling, similar and alike in their love for one another until they joined in the kiss and intermingled until there was no telling whose was whose._

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She surfaced before she could see the rest of the memory, tears streaming down her cheeks as the reality and enormity of what she had lost began crashing down on her. For a long while she sat there in the clearing, sobbing, as she realized that her memory of the wedding was distanced, removed, impersonalized, seen from the view of a video or a recording, that she could not truly and never would remember the most important day of her life.

Finally she got up, a movement both infinitely weary and sad, and headed to the next memory.

From above, a worried husband cursed as he realized that in the Pensieve, their bond was rendered ineffective, and he could not feel anything from his partner and wife.

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_"Rake the yard?" Draco's tone was incredulous, and his face was so stunned that Hermione laughed. _

_"Yes, Draco, rake the yard."_

_"The Muggle way?"_

_"Yes, the Muggle way."_

_"But—but—" he stammered. "That's what wands are for!"_

_"Wizards don't always have the best of everything, Draco," said Hermione. "You'd be surprised to see what fun you could have doing it the Muggle way."_

_"But I'm a Malfoy!" he protested._

_"What does that mean?" she asked. _

_His mouth opened, ready to respond, and she felt his confusion as he realized that, after all, being a Malfoy didn't mean much. As he realized that being a Malfoy no longer meant that he could not have fun, never let his guard down, always be perfect._

_After all, Hermione was a Malfoy now, and as much as he loved his little wife, she was anything but perfect._

_She saw the dawning comprehension and joy on his face, and giggled, and took his hand. "Come on!" she said. _

_"I still don't see what's so fun about this," he grunted, heaving a whole pile of leaves from his rake onto the enormous pile. "We should have called Kira to do this for us. That's what house elves are for." He saw her face tighten as it always did at the mention of house elves and hastily added, "__or__ even our wands!"_

_Her face turned mischievous. "You want to know what's so fun about this?" she asked. "Well, I'll show you. This is!" she called, scooping up a handful of leaves and tossing it at him. A quick nonverbal charm ensured that the leaves would actually find their mark, and not simply flutter aimlessly in the air, as her husband sputtered with surprise and mock outrage. _

_"__Wha__—how—you—come back here!" he roared in pretend anger, and then scooped up his own handful of leaves and came charging after her._

_They ran back and forth across the yard, pelting each other with leaves that, often as not, fell short of their mark, or, when they hit their target, simply showered them with a rain of red and gold. _

_"__Woohoo__!" yelled Hermione as she took a running leap into the pile of leaves, which was now as high as Draco. Draco followed her, and they landed in a flurry of shimmering coppers and auburns, highlighted by the occasional purple as a confetti of gold came showering their heads and shoulders, leaving them looking as though they had been anointed by the Queen of __Autumn_

_They landed, tangled up in each other, dizzy from laughing, Draco on top of Hermione. He mock-growled at her, "Oh, you'll pay for dragging me into this!" and proceeded to mock tussle her, which ended in a wrestling match, rolling about in the piles of leaves._

_This continued until Draco's face crashed into Hermione. In the laughter that followed, his lips somehow found hers, and the tussling became a sort of frenzied lovemaking, until their clothes were undone and their hair was a mess, and there were leaves all over their body. Their breathing grew more and more irregular, and their cheeks more and more flushed, until finally Draco took Hermione's hand and ran with her into their bedroom to finish what they had started until the walls rattled with the sound of their pleasure._

_Outside, the leaves slowly settled, drifting around the yard as they returned to their previous positions. The yard never did get done, but inside the house, Draco and Hermione were having much, much more fun. _

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	15. Dangerous Pensieves, Sleeping Habits, Mo

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Fourteen: Dangerous Pensieves, Sleeping Habits, Mothers, Changes, Trust, and Lullabies

Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; it all belongs to the wonderful but cruel Rowling—I mean, she made Hermione and Ron get together, despite all the impassioned pleas by Dramione fans! How could she?

A/N: The paper ripping is a nervous habit of mine, and I just thought it would be very Hermione-ish to rip paper when under stress. Thanks to BlewStar101 for visit to mother idea. Poem mine.

The man at the top of stairs sprang up, unable to stand the need for his wife any longer, and knowing it was much too late for her to stay up.

"Hermione!"

There was no answer, and, his overprotective male instinct kicking in, he rushed down the stairs. She was face down in the Pensive, her hair floating in the half-liquid, half-haze. All the stories he had ever heard about wizards who were trapped and kept in the haze of memories, forever reliving them, unable to get out, rushed to his mind, and quickly, he raised his wand and muttered an incantation. A bright white glow suffused the room, and Hermione's head was slowly levitated out of the basin. Her eyes were rolled back in her head, and she was deathly pale.

Working quickly, he Summoned a basin, warm water, and cloths, bathing her face in the water and laying cloths along her forehead.

She moaned and stirred; he ignored it and continued to apply the water to her face until she feebly raised a hand and ineffectually attempted to bat it away.

"Shh," he said.

"Why did you bring me out? I wasn't finished."

"You were getting too deep," he said. "Wizards who pour a great deal of their emotion into viewing the Pensieve, or who stay there too long, can become trapped in the Pensieve, unable to get out because they have made those memories practically their own. There are stories of people who became comatose in those things."

"Oh," she murmured. "I guess I was getting emotionally attached. But Draco, there was so much more to see!"

"Shh," he said yet again. "You'll have plenty of time to see them later. Right now it's late, and you should go to bed. You can do it again later, when you're rested."

It was the first time he had used the word 'later' to describe their relationship, and he felt daring, nervous, and hopeful all at once.

"'Kay," she murmured, already half-asleep. Smiling, he carried her up the stairs into their room, shut the door, and curled up outside it.

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"Oof!"

Hermione looked down at the door, which had made a funny grunting noise, only to realize that the noise had not, after all, come from the door, but from a previously sleeping figure outside.

"Oh Merlin, did I hit you Malfoy? Sorry!"

He opened his eyes sleepily, one hand shoving his hair back from his forehead in a messy sort of way, his T-shirt clinging to his body. "Hrgmph?" he said blearily.

She looked at him, stifling a laugh. _He's funny when he's sleepy! _She thought. _Cute, too, _said a stupid little voice, and she stamped on it quickly.

"What are you doing outside my bedroom door?" she asked, saying the first thing that came to mind.

He had the grace to look embarrassed. "This is where I sleep," he said.

"Uh-huh, right, Malfoy," she said. "This is a spacious house. Don't tell me that there's nowhere else to sleep."

"There is," he said, "but I'd rather sleep here." His voice was candid, and it took her by surprise.

"Do you mean to say," she demanded, "that you have been sleeping here every night since I got here?" He nodded. "But it's been over a week!"

"So?" he asked. "I've slept in worse."

She supposed he had, but—

"Why don't you sleep in your own room? It's not like I'm in danger or anything," she said.

He sighed. "I guess it's time I tell you more about our bond," he said.

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"Do you mean to say that it physically _hurts _when you're separated from me?" she asked, intrigued.

"Yes," he said. "It's a sort of tug, an urge. Half-Veela say that it's similar to the call of their mate, and that while this is not as physically drastic as Veela—Veela will die if separated from their mates—people have been known to die if their bond mate breaks it off, not through any physical means but because they have lost the will to live.

I don't think I'd do that—"

Here his eyes betrayed a lie.

"—but it really does hurt when I can't feel you. It's like—I can't describe it really, but I _need _to be with you. Do you understand?"

Hermione nodded slightly. Yes, she did understand. She had felt nothing like that yet—it would come with time—but she felt indescribably more comfortable around Malfoy. Comfortable. Safe. Secure.

Yes, she understood.

"Good," said Malfoy, suddenly all business-like, "because there's something you need to do."

"What?" she asked.

"You need to visit my mother."

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"But Malfoy!" she said, exasperated. "Your mother will hate me! She doesn't approve of 'Mudbloods,' remember?"

His eyes were shadowed as he replied, "I used to be the same, or don't you think that I have changed?"

"At the moment, seeing as you're practically forcing me to see a woman who hates me, I'm not so sure! Maybe you're just the same as you've always been!" she snapped.

Something shuttered inside of him, and he could feel his face closing up and his eyes turning black again. His body stiffened as though someone had hit him, and he stepped back, stung, and physically shaken.

"Well, if you feel like that, you're welcome to leave," he said in a carefully controlled voice. She would not see how much she had hurt him. He was sick and tired of being weak, of letting her hurt him, of letting her access to his heart, because apparently all she did with it was break it.

He had forgotten his lessons with Lucius, and that had been stupid, because his father had been right. Love led only to weakness, and weakness led to getting hurt. It was better not to let anyone hurt you, because then you would survive.

Before she could say anything, or he could betray his pain, he turned and left, striding up the stairs to his room, where he sank down against the wall under the covers, staring at the fire.

It seemed that she didn't trust him after all. All those nights of whispering that she loved him had been for nothing, because if a Potions accident could erase her love, which she had always said was unchangeable, then apparently nothing was secure. If she could forget him, then everyone else could too. And besides, none of them cared the way she had. No, it was better just to close off all ties before anyone else hurt him, then go away. Maybe to Russia. It was cold in Russia. He liked it cold. If it was cold outside, you forgot about how cold it was inside, and that was always better.

And dammit, he hated how just a few careless words from her could make him think of abandoning his life, but they could and they did, and right now he wanted nothing more than to curl up under his blankets and make it all go away.

He buried his face in his hands and tried not to cry.

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Fuck fuck fuck fuck _fuck_what had she done? Jerkily, mechanically, her hands tore up bits of paper as she sat on the sofa. Rip rip rip. Methodically, tearing the paper in half, and half again, until there were a million little paper squares scattered about the sofa, and she was ripping at empty air, and she drew another sheet of paper from thin air.

The ground was littered with white; specks of white floated in the air, on her clothes, covered her feet, caught in her hair. She groped blindly for her wand, her eyes clouded with burning tears, and muttered a Vanishing spell before ripping yet again.

She had _seen _their previous arguments, his torture, his fragility, and _still _she kept on hurting him! What was _wrong _with her? What was she _thinking_?

Absently she wondered if her parents' divorce had scarred her more than she had thought; she remembered reading something like that in a book once.

Oh, she was so _stupid! _ She paced back and forth, sending paper bits flying everywhere, and still she felt that horrible guilt clawing at her insides.

It was hours before she mustered up the courage to go upstairs and peek in his room, afraid of what she might find. If she thought that she might find a cold body or a enraged animal, her fears were unfounded. The room was calm, still, not a single object damaged or out of place, making her think guiltily of the paper blizzard below.

He was curled up under the covers in the fetal position, his chest rising and falling heavily. She looked at him lying there, and her breath caught in her throat. He looked so tired, so worn out, so pale. She remembered his saying that he had slept outside her bedroom door every night since she had come home. And all it had taken was a simple suggestion for her to blow up at him.

Damn she felt guilty.

Looking back later, she didn't know what made her do it, only the knowledge that he looked almost childlike in her sleep. Impulsively, she stepped forward and cradled his head in her arms and sang softly to him. It was a family rhyme, passed down from mother to daughter for generations. Her mother had sung it to her countless nights when she couldn't sleep. On their last night together, before her parents had divorced and then been killed soon after, her mother had sung the song to her one last time, and her voice piercing the night darkness was caught still in her mind, a sort of record playing over and over.

"Stars dancing over you

Moonbeams soft and blue

Shine in the gathering twilight

Shine in your drowsy clouding sight

Lift up all your sorrows

Save them for tomorrow

Close your eyes and rest

May your sleep be blessed."

She bent forward, and, in a moment of impulse, kissed the sleeping man on the forehead, whispering, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Draco, I'm sorry that I said those awful things to you, I'm sorry I lost my memory, I'm sorry that I hurt you, and most of all, I'm sorry that I'm too scared, too shy to say these things to you when you're awake. And when you wake up, I'll go to your mother's with you, I promise."

After she had left, the ex-Death Eater opened his eyes and lay there staring after her, breathing in the scent of warm vanilla and cinnamon she left behind her, replaying her words and melody in his head. In the darkness, he breathed, "Does that mean you love me?"


	16. Confessions of a Pureblood

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Fifteen: Confessions of a Pureblood

Disclaimer: Oh Merlin, another one?

A/N: The Luthien bond is a tribute to my first love, the Lord of the Rings. I rather like Bellatrix too—she's such a fascinating character, and I'm thinking of doing a one-shot based on her sadistic fascination. I know I'm really bashing Lucius in this fic, but that's the way it had to go, so…sorry, my muse made me do it! And really, Narcissa is just too much fun to write!

A/N 2: Angst ahead! Oh, and this is really long for me. Aren't you proud of me? Yippee!

It seemed, Hermione mused as she twirled a strand of ramen around her fork, that mealtimes at this house were destined to be forever awkward. It was breakfast time. Malfoy had been apparently too tired or too upset to cook, so she had been forced to cook up something. Due to her less-than-perfect cooking skills, they ended up with half-cooked instant ramen. Much to her disgust, the ramen was barely edible because she hadn't heated the water properly or something; half of the ramen was a sodding heap of something that had once been noodles, and the other half was barely cooked.

They weren't talking to each other again, just shooting funny little glances at one another. Malfoy's—no, Hermione reminded herself, Draco's eyes were full of hurt, confusion, and something else she couldn't quite put her finger on.

She was just so tired, so guilty, and so scared of what lay ahead.

She put her fork down with a clatter. "I'll go," she announced.

He did not look up or seem surprised. "Thank you," he murmured, then went back to aimlessly chasing bits of seafood around his ramen cup, which was practically untouched.

In the end, both of them dumped over half their breakfast into the garbage disposal. Draco went off, presumably to hunt up something for himself—possibly some leftover macaroni and salsa from the fridge. She had been surprised to note that there were indeed electrical appliances in his house, but then if Draco had changed enough to marry a Muggle-born, then he wouldn't have minded Muggle appliances so much, and she couldn't imagine living without a TV…or a radio…or a music player…or a refrigerator…or a computer…or so much more.

She went upstairs. She wasn't hungry anyway, and if she was going to meet his mother, she wanted to look her best. She rummaged around in her closet and realized that they must be fairly well off—she saw the Cheshire robes hanging in her wardrobe and was unwillingly impressed; Cheshire and Co. were perhaps the most famous purveyors of wizards' and witches' robes in all of England, perhaps even Europe. She saw Gucci and Prada, Muggle brands, mixed in with the wizarding clothes and smiled; apparently she hadn't completely given up Muggle clothing. Also, she was surprised to see how many Muggle brands were also Wizarding purveyors.

For single hilarious moment she imagined going to Malfoy Manor in Muggle clothes. She could just imagine the look on the haughty woman's face if she turned up in jeans and a sweatshirt, jeans and blouse, or even a jean skirt and form-fitting T-shirt.

Regretfully she turned away from that image. Narcissa was likely enough to throw her out as it was; she didn't need to exacerbate the woman's disgust by turning up in Muggle clothing.

Instead, she scoured her closet for appropriate dress robes. She spent perhaps a hour fretting about what to wear, how to do her hair, and other 'girl' things that men will never understand, but which are the world to women, especially women like Narcissa. Hermione knew that with one glance, Narcissa would scour her up and down with a sweeping glance and, in that moment, know more about Hermione's way of dress and judge her even more than Draco would be able to do.

In the end, she ended up with copper robes, to bring out the copper in her hair. They shone slightly, like the burnished copper necklace which she fastened around her neck with trembling fingers. She knew that Narcissa, unlike some of the less-well-bred women, would not be impressed with gaudy displays of money. The copper necklace, while the material was cheap, would accent her outfit much better than silver or gold, and was tastefully and intricately done.

The robes, she noticed, were fitted, and though she had lost a little weight since then, still hung gracefully, to fit her height and weight.

She looked helplessly at her hair and decided to take the hard way—the way she had done at the Yule Ball in Fourth year. An hour and a gallon of Sleakeazy's Hair Potion and several hair spells later, her hair was somewhat smooth, shiny, and stayed somewhat in place, though it was still slightly frizzy and a few strands were defiantly swaying out of place.

Finally she went downstairs, her fingers crossed and her teeth chattering in nervousness. She had no real reason to be nervous yet—they still had a while before they would Floo to Malfoy Manor. It was pre-jitters, Hermione decided. She deliberately ignored the fact that she was just as, if not more, nervous at Draco's seeing her dressed up than Narcissa.

He was waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, looking as handsome as always in wizard dress robes. His features were aristocratic, well-bred rather than good-looking, and his face was intense rather than cute. It was just something compelling and drawing about his looks, a magnetic instinct. Wizards and witches were drawn to raw power, and Draco was sparkling with it.

She felt the alluring tug of magical energy, his wandless magic reaching out to hers. Shocked and a little frightened at how well his magic fit into hers, it took some time before she noticed the way he was looking at her—as though it were her who was pulsating with the raw magic, not him. The intense look on his face, as if he were drinking her in, made her uncomfortable, and she walked past him without looking at him or talking to him as she had planned to, instead calling back over her shoulder, "C'mon, she'll be expecting us."

He followed, just a little crestfallen.

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He felt the familiar sensation of being sucked through the green hole and popped out again in the familiar stone fireplace of Malfoy Manor.

It was odd, being back in the place that held so many memories, good and bad. They came out into the stark, bare room that was their Floo station. It was typical of the Malfoys to have a whole room set apart for Flooing. It was large, dark, with magnificently carved stone walls and busts on the shelves. There were no rugs anywhere—not a scrap of cloth marred the hushed atmosphere. Candles flickered in high, elegant niches. The atmosphere was consciously designed to be intimidating and opulent, and it worked. Draco felt himself shrinking inside, as he had as a child when summoned to his father's study.

The sense of _we're better than you _was almost overpowering, and glancing at his wife, he saw the same distress reflected on her face. Reflexively he reached his arm out to her, and almost without thinking she took his hand.

For one moment, sheer joy spread throughout Draco Malfoy; all his senses were alight with the fact that she was holding his hand, and he was in pure bliss.

Then she realized what she was doing, and jerked her hand back with a rapid blush suffusing her cheeks. He felt a sharp pang as he realized that she must have done it without thinking, as she would have done with Potter or Weasley. For a moment his grey eyes turned black before he regained control of himself and reprimanded himself. He should have known—it was too early.

But he had done what he had meant to—her fear was gone, replaced by embarrassment at having taken his hand and indignation that he had offered it. She stalked ahead, her back rigid, and he wished that she would slow down or at least soften her stance.

It was a long walk down twisting corridors until they reached the room in which Narcissa would be receiving them. Tapestries of old, ancient ancestors of Draco, during a time when their surname had been the French _Malfoi, _hung in the corridors, preserved from the ravages of time by charms and spells which were renewed yearly. Water did not drip—there were no scurrying of rats, or cobwebs in the corner; Malfoys were always perfect, impeccably neat. And yet the air had a depressing sort of gloom, as if in a dungeon. Draco's stride quickened almost unconsciously, and he noticed that ahead of him, Hermione also picked up the pace.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, as memory after memory of Lucius rushed into his mind, they reached the guest room. He opened the door for her and held it open for her. Momentarily a startled expression crossed her face, but it was replaced by gratitude and something else he couldn't name. Instead, he followed her in to meet his mother.

Narcissa had not changed. There was still the ethereal beauty about her, the ice queen demeanor. The expression as though mere mortals were naught to her was still affixed firmly on her face, her long blond hair cascading down in waves down her back. She wore all white, as she always did, heighten the impression of otherworldliness, but there was nothing fragile or fey about her eyes. They were blue shards of ice.

"Son," she said, inclining her head slightly. "Hermione."

"Mother," he replied, taking her hand but not kissing it, instead bending over it slightly and squeezing it, as it was proper for a man to do to his mother.

"It has been awhile," she said.

"Yes, it has."

She sighed suddenly, a short gust of breath which still left Draco dumbfounded. His mother showed no sign of emotion in public.

"I am sorry," he could have sworn he heard her say. Then, "Come here, Draconis."

Obediently he stood from the love seat in which he and Hermione had sat, and crossed the room, around the tea table, and came close to her. Unexpectedly, she took her chin in his hands, ice cold and white, and brought him down to meet her eyes.

They were blue, intensely blue, vivid and piercing, probing into his mind. If he hadn't known better he would have sworn that they were the eyes of a Legilimens, but he was an experienced Occlumens and would have noticed any intrusion into his mind.

He had never thought of his mother as a good spell-caster; Malfoy women, in fact Pureblood women in general, were not meant to be accomplished in manners of magic except for household spells and the like. They were accomplished in other ways.

But then, he had never really known his mother.

It seemed an eternity before she let go of his chin and turned her gaze to his wife. What came next astounded him.

"Leave us, Draco."

He stood there, his eyes wide.

"I wish to have a private chat with your wife." He stood for a while longer, stunned, then turned and left the room.

Malfoy Manor was as he had remembered it—imposing and dark. He wandered the room, seeing ghosts of his past everywhere he looked. There was the floor where he had seen his first Muggle deaths—two children the age of himself, one a brunette who had looked like Hermione, another a raven-haired one with green eyes who had looked startlingly like Potter. Looking back on it now, he suspected that Voldemort had chosen the similarities on purpose.

There was the study to which he had been summoned so many times. He paced the length of it, coming to stand in front of the desk, hands clasped behind his back, as he had done so many times in the past, apprehensive about what new task or reprimand which Lucius had in store for him, trying so desperately to please the cold man in front of him.

There was his bedroom, and here he lingered for a while, drinking in the memories, good and bad. He sat down on his bed, and wondered what his mother wanted with Hermione.

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Hermione shifted uncomfortably in the love seat, realizing suddenly that she missed the warmth of Draco by her. Her flush went thankfully unseen by Narcissa, who was clapping her hands. A crack, and a house elf appeared in front of her.

"Lypsa," said Narcissa, "bring refreshments for me and Miss Malfoy."

"Yes, Mistress," squeaked the poor creature, and returned with glasses of delicate champagne and little petit fours.

"Hermione," said the woman suddenly, leaning forward.

Hermione's gaze snapped toward her. She was dressed all in white, and the look went with her. The dress was not unlike Muggle formal wear in style, but it had a witch's take on it, and she looked neither Muggle-born nor stuffy. Her jewelry was tasteful—14K gold, Hermione thought, and expensive as well as delicate.

She was not a woman to be trifled with.

"Yes, Narcissa?' she asked.

"I will be honest with you," said the other woman. "I have not always done the best for Draco."

Hermione resisted the urge to scoff at this—she stood by and let her husband abuse her child—and simply waited.

"At first I was too madly infatuated with my husband to do anything. It was an arranged marriage, to some degree. We were one of the few who were eligible in each other's circle. Our dowries were signed and our fates decided by our parents. Especially, I had no say in it. Purebloods are behind times when it comes to chauvinism.

"I first became disillusioned with Lucius, I think, when he performed the _Crucio _curse on our son in public, in front of our guests at a dinner party, when Draconis accidentally bumped into a table and sent wine glasses costing a hundred Galleons careening to the floor.

"I had been able to ignore the _Gaugario _spell, in which cuts are inflicted on the victim's back, only with extreme difficulty. This was the final straw.

"I will not lie and say that I ever tried to stop Lucius. At first I was too in love, and then I was too scared. The only time I dared to question his treatment of our son was when he made Draco a Death Eater and gave him the task of killing Dumbledore.

"I never questioned him or Bella outright. I always adored Bella; she was the perfect Slytherin, cold and ruthless and beautiful, and I always emulated her to the best of my ability. She went insane, towards the end. She was in love with the Dark Lord. But before…she was a loving sister, as loving as a Slytherin can be, and when she said that Draco should do the task, I almost believed her. When she said that all should be sacrificed for the Dark Lord, I began to wonder.

"Bella knew this, and she came to me in secret later, saying that she believed that Draco could do it. Lucius knew of this, and encouraged this, but not for my comfort, as Bella had done. He wanted to regain his place of favor, and he didn't want me in the way. So I stood by and did nothing, for surely Draco was a Malfoy; he would find a way to fulfill his task.

"He failed at that too, and I think it was then that I wondered if Lucius was not right, and Draco was a disgrace to the Malfoy name.

"You must understand that I was brought up in one of the most eligible of Pureblood families. I was brought up to believe that Muggle-borns were beneath us and worthy only to serve; that Muggles were little more than animals, the missing link. I was brought up to believe that women were to be subservient to men, and that above all, the overweening loyalty was to our family.

"Draco still believes in the family code, Hermione. Family pride means a great deal to him. He may have renounced the Pureblood life and his father, but he is still a Malfoy. He would give up a great deal not to shame his family name. He has married you without much guilt because he does not believe that this should not shame his family, that this is not a cause for guilt.

"He was always headstrong." Hermione bristled at this insinuation that Draco had been wrong and that he had only married her because he felt safe doing so, but Narcissa continued.

"But I believe that even if it would shame his family, he would have married you."

Hermione's head whipped up, and she stared at Narcissa, not quite believing her ears.

"He truly loves you. I threatened to disinherit him, and he insisted on marrying you. I never followed through with my threat; there was not much left of the Malfoy fortune to deny him in any case, and despite what it may seem, I love my son.

"And he is miserable. I saw it in his face a while ago. He loves you, but you persist in ignoring the connection you have. You are, even, downright cruel to him, are you not?"

Hermione lowered her eyes, unable to face her with the knowledge of what she had done even yesterday still fresh in her mind.

"He has changed. He loves you. I know something of Wizarding bonds, and I know the physical pain it causes him to be separated from you for too long. It hurts his heart and soul as well, because they grow dependent on one another who dare to use the Luthien bond, as you did.

"I have, as I said before, loved him, and I still do. I do not like seeing my son in such pain. I, Narcissa Malfoy, am asking you to help him. My prejudices are ingrained in me, and I am still struggling with the concept of blood equality. This is as it always will be; I make no excuses and offer no apologies. But, for this moment, as woman to woman, both of whom love the same man—even if you do not realize your own love yet—I am begging you to make every effort.

"You two belong with each other. The Luthien bond is not to be lightly undertaken, and it cannot be forced. It happens only in very special circumstances, with very special couples. You cannot deny your love, or your destiny with Draco. In the end, it will only cause pain to both you and your husband.

"Please, if not for Draco, at least for yourself, at least try to regain what you once had."

She fell silent at last, leaving Hermione to stare at the woman she had thought she had pegged, realizing only now that she had barely skimmed the surface.

Silence enveloped them, falling heavily in deep folds around them as a stifling blanket of darkness. It seemed ages, but was in reality only a few minutes when Hermione finally gave her answer.

"Yes," she said, and her voice sounded foreign to her own ears. "Yes, I will. For Draco's sake and my own."


	17. Facing Ghosts, Recalling Memories, and I

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Sixteen: Facing Ghosts, Recalling Memories, and Insinuations

Disclaimer: These awful things are really getting on my nerves…I mean c'mon, don't you people have better things to do than read tediously long statements about something which should be pretty obvious by now? Seriously, even Crabbe and Goyle don't need to be told something sixteen times…

A/N: Hi! In the first part, Draco's rather melodramatic, isn't he? Oh well…that's why we love him…and this chapter is longer than usual too…be proud! I need to wind up to an ending really…I'm putting in too many sidetracks, it's just that Narcissa is such an interesting character…if anybody has an idea about how to wind this ramble up into a nice ending, please review and tell me! This is a lot longer than I intended it to be, so I need to finish up soon.

Draco paced his bedroom, wondering what on earth his mother was taking so long to talk to Hermione about. He wondered if it could be anything good. His mother had changed, of that he was sure; she had not raised a fuss when informed of their wedding—in fact, she had attended it, if not in any conspicuous position; she had a reputation to uphold as one of the last remaining true Pureblood aristocrats.

But had she changed enough of her prejudices to really speak with a Muggle-born, alone, in close quarters, especially a feisty one like Hermione, this long without hexing her? He wasn't sure whether he was more worried for his mother or Hermione.

He knew she could take care of herself…but in many ways she was still a sixteen-year-old, while Narcissa was older and experienced and had, after all, lived many years in Malfoy Manor as a, if not Death Eater, at least a willing co-conspirator. He found it hard to believe that she could have lived for so long around Lucius and not picked up _something. _

Visions of heavily bleeding women and wrecked parlors and dying girls haunted his mind, and he paced furiously, searching for another way to expend his worry and energy.

If he had to choose one above the other…he loved Hermione so much, he really did, but this was his _mother _he was talking about…while she had not been a parental figure in any sense of the word really, she would always be the one who had given him birth and the one who had bought him so many things and had, sometimes, endeavored to make his life somewhat bearable in the only way she knew how—materialism. Regretfully he concluded that standard Pureblood upbringing did not make for good parents.

He would choose Hermione…

He shook his head. What was he thinking about, really? This was absurd. Surely his mother was not stupid enough to endanger her precarious position as the wife of a well-known Death Eater barely accepted in society and not trusted in the Ministry just for the sake of hexing an annoying Mudblood—from her perspective, anyway. He never used the M-word anymore.

And Hermione could take care of herself, as could Narcissa. Both were intelligent witches. They would do nothing of the sort. He was just being a typical melodramatic, overprotective, paranoid male.

To take his mind off the scene at the parlor, he began to aimlessly roam the corridors of the house which held so many negative memories for him.

Darkness enveloped him as he pushed opened the doors to one of the countless rooms that were on the first floor alone. Dust arose from the floor; clearly this place had not been opened for many years. Doubling over in a coughing fit, he waved his hand in a futile attempt to clear the air, nonverbally creating a Bubble Head Charm until he could breathe properly. It looked ridiculous and undignified, and no doubt his stately ancestors would be turning in their graves at the sight of their descendant looking so silly, but it was practical and he really didn't give a shit about them anyway.

Raising his wand again he whispered, "_Lumos._" The light spell was dull, creating only a faint silvery glow, but it was all the light he wanted or needed. He didn't think he could bear to face this room naked, stripped of all defenses and shadow, which he had grown to love and trust in the days of his past ordeals.

He looked around the room. It had a high vaulted ceiling and the walls were made of thick stone. He winced as he recalled the screams echoing and re-echoing, bouncing off the unfeeling walls, louder and louder, growing more and more anguished until they became no longer human but an animal-like cry of pure agony.

_Burning flesh, the acrid smell of smoke and more stinging his nostrils, heat, heat, the terrible heat all around him, whimpers and cries, a mother clutching her baby, begging for mercy…_

"No!" the sound burst out of his mouth louder than he had intended as he began shaking his head frantically at the ghost of his memories. "No, no, no, no," he whispered.

It had been so long ago…they had been Muggles, innocent Muggles, who had done nothing wrong save been born at the wrong time. At the time he had not had a very high opinion of Muggles, having still been Lucius's good little boy…he had been only fourteen.

He still remembered their cries as Lucius began laughing, his laughter echoing that of the Dark—Voldemort's, Aunt Bella joining in, their laughter mingling with the screams in a sort of terrible counterpoint to the lurid harmony.

Lucius had been furious with him as he stood there, his skin sickly pale, his eyes stark and staring at nothing as he watched the mother, with her last breath, breathe a plea for her child…

"Please…not Sammy, not my son, please, not my child…"

The memory had haunted him for days, showing in his nightmares, the mother's fearful, ravaged wide eyes accusing him, staring at him, demanding of him what he could not give, asking why, why he had not saved them.

It had been the first time he had watched a death from beginning to end.

He had retched uncontrollably, weeping and terrified.

His father had been disgusted.

He had cried.

His father had been disgusted.

He had been weak.

His father had been disgusted.

The result had been a caning and a _Crucio _far beyond what he had ever experienced before. The caning had been not much more, really, than the punishment he had received for being caught by Dumbledore third year with that dementor stunt, but the _Crucio _had been much, much worse, because this time it had been Voldemort who had applied it, and Voldemort knew so much more than Lucius about it.

His hate, his strength, his power was so much more potent than that of Lucius.

And Voldemort knew how to keep you awake. How to torture you to the edge of unconsciousness, and then, just when you were at the brink of blissful darkness, to pull you back and give you blessed reprieve for a few seconds before again applying the curse.

It had been the worst punishment he had ever received.

His limbs had trembled for days afterwards, and when next year his father had landed in Azkaban, he had been so sharp with Potter, so hateful, so furious, because he realized that the emotion he was feeling was gratitude—gratitude for locking that madman up away from him in prison, gratitude warring with the Malfoy pride and the feeling that no matter what he did, his father was god.

The memories rushed in on him as they had done so often before, only this time, he let them. The sea of emotions, the fear, the pain, the sorrow, the knowledge that he would never be good enough—all of them flooded his mind, rushing through—and then out again.

They trickled out of him, reluctantly, hatefully, but slowly and inevitably, they left, leaving behind nothing but old scars.

Coming to this room had been a good idea, he realized. Since he had married Hermione, he had not come to the Manor, instead having his mother come and visit them on the rare occasions she had wished to see her son.

But now—he knew that his ghosts would never die, but haunt him until the day he finally drifted into forever. But for now, they had been silenced. He had had to face his past, and he had done it, and he had succeeded.

His future would still be rocky, but…it would work. He would make it work. And maybe, just maybe, Hermione would help him.

The thought put a smile on his face, and he left the room in search of his mother and the woman he loved.

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He was mildly surprised to find that they had not, after all, killed themselves and expressed his feelings, saying, "Still all in one piece? Impressive."

Hermione had laughed—oh how he loved that laugh—and said teasingly, "Do you really think so little of me? At the very least, after we had hexed each other, I would have cleaned us all up."

They had all laughed at that, even his mother letting a smile play on her lips as she watched the two of them. It felt good to have her teasing him again, to be able to pretend, if only for a little while, that everything was normal once again.

They left soon after, gathering their cloaks and heading for the Floo room. Before they left, his mother had looked him in the eyes. He had known, then, what she had said to Hermione. No words passed between them—none were needed. He nodded, once, a curt, short nod, then turned to follow his wife out the door.

The Malfoy loyalty was upheld, and his mother loved him.

Draco Malfoy was happy.

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When they reached home, Hermione immediately went upstairs to change her robes. They were getting hot and sticky; despite the fact that they were cool and light, the nature of the clothes were simply cumbersome, and the fact that they had been fitted and were on the clinging side simply made them even more annoying.

As she had expected, she found a pair of jean shorts in her closet, and after hunting through quite a lot clothes—she wondered how on earth she had managed to buy so many—she finally found an old friend—a copper-colored T-shirt that was just right, not too tight, not too loose, and with a single autumn leaf emblazoned on the front.

It was one of those T-shirts that you just love and keep around much longer than you really should, even when it's beginning to be worn and frayed at the edges and should frankly have gone into the rag bag long time ago, just because something about it feels right and comfortable, and then after awhile because of the memories.

She pulled it on over her head carefully, smiling at the memories—this was an old T-shirt, she had had it since fourteen, when it had been much too big for her really. She had shot up a bit since sixteen, so that it fitted well, and hadn't grown much since then. After all, she was perhaps the definition of petite.

Then she pulled on the jean shorts—a mite too short for her taste, but with a very nice leather belt of which she was fond—and headed downstairs. She had a few questions to ask her husband about his mother and sister.

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"Draco?" he looked up from the newspaper he was perusing. The headlines read, "The Boy-Who-Lived Having Marriage Problems?" with a huge photo of Cho heaving something remarkably heavy at Potter, who looked both amused and annoyed.

Most likely it was nothing really—Cho had the longest temper on most things, but on some things, she was unreasonably cross. Such as her hair. The ex-Ravenclaw Seeker was rather vain about her long, shiny black hair, and Draco could only imagine that Potter had managed to say or do something to her hair that Cho had not liked.

Really, though, the girl was amusing. It looked like she was heaving a very heavy vase at Potter. Draco recognized that vase—it was from the Black family, and immensely old and ugly. Cho, as practical as ever, must have seized the chance to show her displeasure, vent her temper, make headlines, and get rid of a vase all at the same time.

Very Slytherin of her.

"Yes, Hermione?" he asked.

"I want to know some more about your mother," she said. "And your aunt Bellatrix. What were they like?"

He sighed. He supposed the question would have had to come up eventually, but he didn't have very many happy memories of his childhood.

"Well," he began. Hermione, recognizing the signs of a good long talk, came closer and drew her knees up to her chest.

"Narcissa—"

"You call your mother by her first name?" she interrupted.

He frowned. "Not to her face, and not really in public, but among friends, or at least close acquaintances, it is customary for Purebloods to call their parents by their first names—unless they are unusually close, in which case they would continue to call them Mother and Father even after they came of age.

"Anyway, she was always a rather passive woman. She preferred to set things in motion, then sit down and wait to see what happened, always doing as little as possible, both to save the energy and to make sure she never got caught. In Hogwarts, as I understand, it was Bellatrix who did most of the work, she and other cronies. Narcissa preferred to make the plans and manipulate people into doing the rest.

"Bellatrix, of course, did of little of actual manual labor as possible, but she enjoyed doing the dirty work of torturing or frightening or intimidating or killing the unlucky victims. Not that she ever killed anyone in Hogwarts, she wasn't stupid enough to endanger her position like that, and she wasn't quite as insane back then.

"Actually, she was quite the protective older sister, from what I can learn. Narcissa was always something of a coward—something I inherited from her. We both have a very strong sense of survival, and we don't like to endanger ourselves unless we have to. Bellatrix, on the other hand, was quite bold and never hesitated to pull off a risky prank. So my mother would have looked up to her and idolized her.

"She also admired Bellatrix's looks." Here Hermione made a small sound of disbelief.

"You're thinking of after she got out from Azkaban," said Draco. "And even then you have to admit, she was very striking. But before that, she was amazingly beautiful. Her dark hair and white skin wasn't very unusual, but her hair was the darkest, and her skin the lightest of all of them, and her features are a lot more impressive than Narcissa's. Narcissa gives the effect of a perfect ice queen—nothing memorable as a single, just as the whole picture. Bellatrix, besides her impressive coloring, had hooded dark eyes that stuck in your mind for days after she glared at you.

"Yes, Mother adored Bellatrix. She adored Lucius too. I mean, he was quite a bit older than she was, and at first it was just a little girl hero-worshiping a big boy who was handsome, had lots of money, and was prince of Slytherin, her house.

"I'm pretty sure that she liked the fact that he had her coloring but was still memorable, and that his pranks were always on the grand, serious scale. Also, he was not quite her match in manipulating, but more than made up for that by intimidation, bribing, and his family name, which was ever so slightly more than hers.

"In fact, I'm not quite sure it ever progressed, really, beyond the hero-worshiping stage. At eighteen, she still adored my father, and so when the marriage was proposed, she eagerly agreed. Lucius, I'm sure, did not mind the heavy dowry that came with her, or her fairly good looks, or her manipulative talents, or her family name.

"Bellatrix, to be sure, was more striking, but I think he liked the idea of a blond, pale family, and marrying Narcissa would ensure that I inherited the trademark Malfoy platinum hair. Also, Bellatrix was too daring for his taste. Too reckless. It was the first time anyone had ever preferred Narcissa over Bellatrix, so she was even more enamored of him when he chose her.

"After the marriage, which was of course grand and large, Narcissa never questioned her husband until I came. Lucius, I think, was always somewhat disgusted with me. I'd inherited Narcissa's preference for manipulation behind the scenes to get my own way. Not that Lucius minded that, but I also inherited a slight flair for the melodramatic, and a cowardice that rendered me incapable of ever being a very good Death Eater, along with a dislike for blood and killing.

"So he never really liked me, and took it out during our 'sessions.' Narcissa was a little uneasy, but didn't really care until I was maybe fourteen? I'm not quite sure. Anyway, it was really all manipulation, what she did for me. Sometimes she would distract my father from me, or promise him something else without really committing herself wholeheartedly to me. And she would make up for her cowardice later in the only way she knew how."

"Buying you things," said Hermione softly.

"Yes," he said. "Can you wonder that I turned out a spoiled, self-centered, frightened brat?"

She shook her head.

"Besides," he said with a grin. "As my cousin Tonks always insisted, I may have been a spoiled brat, but a charming one."

Hermione shook her head, grinning, and swatted him on the arm. He yelped, then continued.

"And Potter told you the rest—about how she made Severus swear an Unbreakable Vow even against Lucius and Bellatrix. That, above all, I think, clinched the fact that she loved me. If she was willing to go against them…" he trailed off.

"By then Bellatrix was completely insane. She had loved Rodolphus once, I think, but by now she was obsessed with Voldemort and Voldemort alone. She loved him, worshiping him as a leader, but also with lust, I think, which is just disgusting." He wrinkled his nose.

"I mean, I know that Rodolphus isn't half as good-looking as I am—who is?—but really, turn to _Voldemort? _He's ancient, and bald, and disgustingly corpse-ish."

Hermione giggled, and he smiled, proud of himself for making her laugh.

"So she was in a frenzy, enjoying blood and all that, and yeah…I'm actually kind of glad Potter killed her. it was better for her that way. She would have enjoyed it much more than rotting away to a slow and inglorious death in Azkaban."

"Are you saying that dying as a Death Eater is glorious?" Hermione demanded, bristling.

"I'm only saying it from her perspective," he said mildly. "Anyway, that's really all I know about my mother and aunt. It's getting late. I'll make dinner this time," he said pointedly as Hermione scrambled to her feet.

"Hey!" she mock glared at him. "Are you insinuating that I cannot cook?"

"Well, that too, but actually I was insinuating that I wanted to actually eat this time. The garbage disposal is full and will be for a long time; we don't need to feed it anymore. _I_'m the one who's hungry this time."

She glared at him, but he scrambled up, and, shooting her a Malfoy smirk, headed for the kitchen.


	18. The Dangers of Pensieves, Herocomplexes

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Seventeen: The Dangers of Pensieves, Hero-complexes, and a Tentative Peace

Disclaimer: I would say that I owned Harry Potter except that I have studies to do and therefore cannot waste time being sued by countless lawyers and mobbed by rabid HP fans.

**A/N: oh my god, I just realized, in the first chapter I said that Ron had married Lavendar, but after that I made him go with Pansy, even though I had said that she was single—whoops, I am so sorry! I don't normally make mistakes like this, this is just soooo long, you know? ****Yeah…**

**Oh, and the David Eddings part is a tribute to one of my all-time favorite authors. He's great, really, my writing is but a poor imitation of his, read them if you like my stuff, because his is like mine, only ten times greater and longer…poor me, I just can't win, can I?**

The days went by surprisingly quickly for the two adults. Draco continued to regale Hermione with stories of their past life, but good though his tongue was, it was no match for the Pensieve, and Hermione found herself sifting more and more through the memories of the silver basin.

It was like an addiction, she thought gloomily as she perched on her heels, rocking back from a especially grueling session in it. It had been a memory of being captured by the Death Eaters together with Draco, and the memory was overcolored by fear, raw, acrid fear that bubbled up deep within her and refused to let her go.

It hurt, to think of what she had lost, and it was unhealthy and downright dangerous. But she couldn't stop.

"Looking at the Pensieve again?" her husband strolled in the living room, his cloak thrown back to reveal jeans and a T-shirt. It seemed that some of her habits had rubbed off on him. His tone was a curious mix of disapproval and happiness. She knew how torn he was. Being in the Pensieve was dangerous, more dangerous than she could comprehend, and all of his instincts screamed for him to keep her safe, but at the same time she could feel how much he wanted her back.

He had taken to attempting to shield her from the brunt of the Luthien bond's connection, but even he, the master Occlumens, could not keep it up 24/7, and overwhelming emotions tended to slip through the chinks in his weakening mental shield.

She nodded silently, staring at her hands.

"Which memory was it?"

She licked her lips, which had become dry. "Where we were captured by the Death Eaters near Bristol. You remember? Your Aunt was there. She was laughing and playing with my hair. It was awful."

Yes, he did remember. It was not a pleasant memory, and unconsciously he wrapped the cloak tighter about himself.

"I see. Hermione, Merlin knows that I of all people am happy to see you trying so hard to regain your memory, but it's dangerous. Really, you shouldn't. I'm beginning to be seriously worried about your health. I've been talking to the mediwizards who specialize in this sort of stuff. They say that being in a Pensieve for more than an hour a time in quick succession is dangerous to your magic."

She nodded wearily, but could not resist saying, "Just one more memory."

He looked worried, but she knew he couldn't stop her, and he understood somewhat of the stress she must be going through, knowing that she had effectively missed ten years of her life.

"All right. Just one more."

She took a deep breath, then rocked forward on her heels and sank her face into the glimmering liquid.

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_This time she did not travel to the glen but was plunged directly into a chaotic memory. Spells were whizzing through the air at a rate so fast that she could barely follow them with her panic-blurred eyes. Her hair whipped through the air as she dodged and twisted as fast as she could—somewhere during the course of the battle her fastenings had come undone, and now the bushy mass was constantly in her way, her face, her eyes, tripping her up and blinding her at every turn, but she had no time to stop and pin it up._

_She recognized some of those who were firing the jets of light at her—Bellatrix, Avery, Macnair, Crabbe, Goyle, Zabini, Parkinson. Jets of green light were intermingled every so often with the red and blue beams, and those she took care to avoid completely. There was no room for error with one of those._

_Suddenly across the field she saw a pale figure come to a halt in the middle of one its turns, hit by a jet of light. It froze somehow in the air as the world around it came to a stop, a stasis, and then time moved again and it began to fall, gracefully, like a limp rag doll._

_Her heart came to a shuddering halt, beating so rapidly and then braking so abruptly she felt the breath catch in her throat. Distantly through a far-off mist she heard the sound of somebody screaming and wished they would stop because it was making her head spin. Then she realized that the somebody was her and her head was spinning, not because of the screaming but because the figure she had seen __go__ down was Draco Malfoy._

_"No!" the sound tore from her lips as she charged recklessly across the field, ignoring the jets of light, green and red alike, straining to reach him. He couldn't be dead, he couldn't be, __he__ couldn't be!_

_Suddenly darkness seemed to overtake her. A black cloud crept up and descended softly over her, suffocating and stifling, until she couldn't breathe. Sight faded from her eyes and the last thing she saw was a pale face and the knowledge that this was not part of the memory…_

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Draco watched in horror as his wife's body suddenly stiffened in the Pensieve, then jerked in a grotesque sort of spasm. Her back arched to an angle impossible to human body, her heels began drumming uselessly on the floor and her legs rose high, but her face remained steadfast in the Pensieve. Instinctively, he attempted to pull her out, but a force stronger than glue seemed to be holding her there as her struggles grew weaker and weaker.

The last thing he recalled was a blinding sense of panic before a white glow seemed to emanate from his body and a blast silenced every call and every need.

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She woke to a blinding white light for the second time in a month and winced. Her tongue felt impossibly thick and heavy in her mouth, and she found that she could not speak. Protestingly, she made a sort of noise, and a medi-nurse hurried over to her.

"There, there, dear, that's good, are you awake now?"

"What happened?" she struggled to say, only the words came out distorted and wrong. The woman seemed to understand, however, and said, "You spent too much time in a Pensieve, dearie. Those things are expensive and dangerous for a reason, you know. Your husband over there, Mr. Malfoy—"

Hermione noticed how her mouth seemed to pinch disapprovingly at the sound of his name—

"—appeared to have panicked and lost control of his wandless magic when he found that he could not extricate you from the silly thing. Luckily for both you, the magic did the trick and pulled you out. Both you should be fine, given some rest."

She looked to where the medi-nurse had gestured vaguely. Sure enough, there sat Draco, his normally pale face even paler.

"No more Pensieve for you, young lady," he said with the faintest hint of a smirk. "Actually, the medi-wizard said that you shouldn't even touch a Pensieve until at least a year has gone by."

"That bad?" she asked, her heart sinking.

He looked at her, his face dead serious. "The medi-wizard said another minute and you would have been irretrievable. You would have been comatose for the rest of your life."

She paled as well, and he said in a gentler tone, "Hermione, I was dead worried. Please, be more careful."

She nodded numbly, and he gave her one of those rare genuine smiles where his eyes lighted silver. "Good. Then we can go home now." To her disbelief, he hopped out of bed and undid the straps that fastened her to her own.

"Mr. Malfoy, what—" the medi-nurse spluttered.

"Good day, madam. I believe my wife and I shall be leaving now."

And, to the utter shock and surprise of everyone concerned, including Hermione, he did just that.

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"Merlin, Hermione, I am so sorry!" cried a distraught Harry from the Fireplace, his face chalky and his green eyes distressed.

"Harry, it's fine," said a calm Hermione. The scowl on Draco's face seemed to indicate otherwise, but even he had grudgingly acknowledged that it was not 'Potter's fault.'

"But if I hadn't brought the Pensieve, none of this would have happened and—"

"Precisely," she interrupted him. "None of this would have happened. I would never have gotten to experience so many things—how we met him, what we did, small fun experiences, our first kiss…other…acts—" here her face flushed slightly, and Draco laughed, "and it was completely my fault for overusing the Pensieve when Draco had warned me over and over again about its dangers."

"But—" Harry began.

From behind him a voice called, "Hermione, is he blaming himself again?"

A smile teased about Hermione's lips as she called back, "Yes, Cho, he is."

Another black-haired head appeared next to Harry's. It was Cho. Her face had matured and grown into a womanly sort of beauty, but right now she was scowling exasperatedly. "Honestly, Harry, you need to get over this hero-complex of yours. Everything that happens is _not _your fault."

Draco burst out laughing. "Hero-complex. I love that. It describes Potter perfectly."

Harry mock-scowled at him but said no more, apparently defeated for the time.

After some more idle chit-chat, the two raven-hairs left, called away by the pressing needs of one Lily Potter, who was currently complaining about the fact that James had 'stolen her book!'

Hermione and Draco were left sitting down and looking at each other.

"Do you realize," he said, something unreadable in his grey eyes, "that it has been a week since you woke up?"

She nodded, mutely, silenced by the frighteningly intense emotion in his face.

"And that it was three months before that while I couldn't see you?"

She nodded again, wondering where this was leading.

"Hermione…" here he sighed and closed his eyes. "Merlin I miss you…"

She sat in shock, not knowing what to do. Even now, Draco was not, as far as she could tell, a 'sharing-feelings' kind of person. He found it hard to communicate properly, and while his social skills were charming, they were both highly undeveloped and sophisticated at the same time.

"I—I'm sorry, she said tentatively, leaning forward slightly.

"It's not your fault," he murmured, keeping his eyes closed. "If anything, it's mine."

"What do you mean?" she asked, her voice slightly higher-pitched. Surely he wouldn't have tried to do her in and backed out at the last moment? Or did he love her but had he botched it and was going to finish it up anyway?"

_Damn it, Hermione! _Scolded her conscience. _Get a grip on yourself! You promised yourself you'd try to trust more! He's not the Draco Malfoy you knew in Hogwarts, remember? He changed, Hermione, changed! People can do that, you know!_

But it was too late. The look in her eyes and the sudden rush of fear from her Luthien bond had alerted him before she could either guard her eyes or close off the bond.

The trust in his eyes, the teetering on the brink of revealing a secret, had gone out like a candle-flame dashed in the wind, extinguished by the faintest puff of air, and she was left with the mask again.

"Nothing," he said curtly. "It's nothing." And he said nothing more on that subject, or indeed on any other, all throughout dinner.

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She had settled into a sort of tense schedule. She knew that Draco had had to have a job, but for some reason he was never out or about really; whenever she wanted him or was indeed in any sort of distress, however slight, he was there immediately, hypersensitive to the bond and its call.

Her morning started late—eight or nine, while he got up much earlier, so technically he could have been doing all his work in the early morning, she supposed. By the time she got dressed and downstairs, breakfast was already ready for her, and he was there, waiting at the table. She never knew how long he waited.

Throughout the morning, she attempted to amuse her in any way she could. As this was her house, of course there were a lot of books here—in fact, there was a whole library of them, three rooms devoted entirely to tall bookcases lining the walls and making aisles of books, formed into a sort of circle around a luxurious reading area in the middle, with lush leather couches and armchairs, as well as Muggle beanbags.

She flipped through them as much as she could. There were a great many books she had never heard about or read before, and she delighted in opening book after book that pulled her interest. Many of them, she saw, she had perused often before. Time after time she would open a new book, only to find notes, subtext, and other interesting comments in her tiny cramped handwriting on the sizeable margins. Sometimes, she even found Post-its stuck to the pages with Spellotape, crammed with information she had only dreamed of attaining.

It was odd, really, to open an unfamiliar book and find that she had not only read it, she had highlighted her favorite passages and even dashed off witty comments. An odd sense that was not quite déjà vu, but not quite anything else either, would come over her as she lost herself in the pages.

Someone once said, in a Muggle fiction book by someone with a very funky name, that when you read books, you stored a part of you in them. Memories of who you were at any given time could spring out at you each time you turned a page, until the book became not only an account of the story inside it but of your life. Each stain, each mark, each tear in the pages was something special because it told a story of its own.

That mark was from the best coffee I ever drank; that tear was when Harry and Ron seized the book and held it over my head until I agreed to play Quidditch with them; that indentation on the cover was when Hagrid accidentally dropped a Blast-Ended Skrewt on top of my book.

But how do you explain the feelings that pop out of you from books that you have never read before? The half-memories that seemed to spring to life inside of her when she read a particular passage, only to slam shut the moment she tried to explore the corridor behind the door, the emotions stirred for no particular reasons, the inexplicable knowledge that welled up in you when yours truly turned a page?

She attempted to explain it to Draco, once, over dinner. He had frowned and tilted his head to the side, ever so slightly, locks of hair falling into his eyes. A slow sort of comprehension had dawned in his eyes, and he had nodded when she explained about how you stored a piece of your soul into a book everytime you read it, once he understood that she was not talking about the Dark Arts.

He didn't love books as much as he did—who did, really?—but his own affinity for books, if less than her own, was great, and he, too, knew what it was like to open a long-unread book from a dusty shelf and have memories attack you, though in his case it was sometimes from the fact that Lucius had cast a nasty curse on that particular book or bookshelf.

The mornings were spent thus, reading new books and, in the process, learning new things about herself. For instance, after she read _Pawn of Prophecy, _a book by a certain wizard named David Eddings—apparently this book was popular in the Muggle world as well—she discovered that she enjoyed cold ice cream on hot brownies now, something she had never even thought about eating when she was sixteen, thanks to her dentist parents.

Then at lunch she would join him, probably not having seen him the entire morning, eating a lunch that was usually either leftovers from yesterday's dinner, or takeout from nearby restaurants. They would eat silently, as usual, in unspoken respect of the awkwardness of mealtimes, though this seemed to decrease as the days went by, and Hermione found herself bringing a book to the table, something she had not done since she was thirteen, except, of course, during exam time.

She could feel his eyes on her throughout lunch time, though, so her reading was not very productive.

Then in the afternoons, she might perhaps just sit with him, reading or knitting or sewing or anything really, while he read a newspaper or worked on some papers—the only time she ever saw him doing anything remotely like working—or perhaps, if they were in a good mood, ask him to tell her a story about her old times, or once in a while, ask him a question about something that had come up during her reading sessions in the library, or some inexplicable knowledge that had hit her while turning a page.

Dinner was the best meal of the day. Draco would cook it, and no matter what it was, it was always good. Hermione found herself adjusting to new tastes everyday. When she complained about snails at the supper table once, Draco gave her an odd look and said, "It's one of your favorite dishes." She had tried one then, and found it delicious. She had afterwards scoured the plate, and Draco's lips had twitched amusedly.

It was the evenings afterwards that were truly wonderful. Draco would bring a drink—her favorite Indian drink perhaps, a bottle of vintage, but watered, wine, Butterbeer, pumpkin juice, tea, coffee—sometimes even exotic drinks that she had never heard of but always tasted wonderful.

They would curl up together by the fire, not touching, not too close, but the closest they had gotten since the day had begun. And he would tell her stories—wonderful and terrible, stories about herself and himself, stories about their life together. Sometimes they ended in disaster; she overreacted, or he was lost in memories, or the telling was just too painful.

But most times, they ended up sitting in a cozy silence, staring into the crackling embers that leaped and flared like playful kittens, each lost in their own thoughts.

It was a good time.

Not wonderful, not blissful, not the unthinking ecstasy that newly married couples enjoy. It was just…good. A mutual, tentative understanding, a probing, fragile sort of trust, and a silent agreement to do their best to get along and understand each other—not to press her for anything she wasn't ready on Draco's part, and not to hurt him on Hermione's part.

It was careful. It was slow. But it was happening, slowly but surely. And Draco was happy.


	19. An Outing, Window Shopping, Glacios, and

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Eighteen: An Outing, Window Shopping, Glacios, and Dinner With the Potters

Disclaimer: Sheesh, why do I even bother? It's obvious that you will never understand that I do not own Harry Potter, no matter how many times I tell you, Mr. Lawyer, so why should I continue to waste my superior intellect on you? Huh? Oh yeah, because I'm an incredibly nice person.

A/N: Oh wow, so far this has been 83 pages on Microsoft Word, not even counting the rest of this chapter…I am so incredibly proud of myself…but we need to wind this up. This is so much longer than I had planned it to be…help! I'm stuck in the land of Never-Endings! Reviewers rescue me!

And I switch to present tense in the middle of this chapter—I meant to. It is a stylistic sort of thing. Do not review me to criticize about this please.

"Hermione?"

They were sitting together over glasses of chilled sherbet, staring at the fire as they did so often. It was funny really, because Draco felt that by the time this fiasco was over—if it ever was—they would have wasted one-third of their lives watching the flames flicker and leap in their fiery dance.

Not that it was boring—as in snowflakes, the same patterns never showed up twice in the glowing embers, and Hermione had taught him to take pleasure in the simplest of things—listening to a bird sing, or watching the sun set.

But still—it was not productive. And besides, Draco felt that it had been quite a while since Hermione had woken up—she needed to get out more. The last visit outside had been to the hospital a few weeks ago, and that had hardly been of a social nature. Even their visit to his mother had been…well, interesting, but hardly amusing, unless you count the fact that they hadn't torn each other apart amusing.

"Mmhmm?" she inquired, still staring at a particular ember with a funny shape like a kitten's head, whose eyes were glowing and one of whose whiskers were tilted at a crooked angle.

"Don't you think you should get out more?"

This time her eyes flew to his face, startled, but not really displeased.

"Why?"

"I don't know," he said, flustered slightly by her question. "Do you need a reason to get out? Besides, your skin is getting paler than mine, and you haven't been out—not _really _out, for a long long time. I thought we could go to Diagon Alley or something, or maybe to Severus's, or Pansy's, or Blaise's, or even Potter's. Just—get out."

A slight wrinkle appeared in the middle of her forehead as she frowned thoughtfully, and she caught her lip in between her teeth in a positively dangerously arousing way.

"You have a point," she conceded. "My skin _is _getting a bit pale. And going to your mother's house really doesn't count as a pleasant picnic—neither does going to the hospital. Well, then," she said briskly. "How about Diagon Alley, among other places, all day, and then eat dinner at somebody's?"

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

It never failed to surprise her how efficiently Draco got things done. She was used to being the efficient one—the organizer, and in a way, she still was. But she acted more on her feelings than Draco, logical though she was. They were both extremely rational people, the only difference being that she hated breaking the rules, and he reveled in it. He was a coward—she was a what? Did he go all out for things he believed in? Did she?

She shook her head to clear it of those disturbing thoughts. Honestly, no matter how much the man might have changed, he was and always would be Draco Malfoy, Slytherin extraordinaire, and nothing was ever going to change that.

Slytherins aside, he had arranged their outing within minutes, and before she knew it, it was the next morning, and he was banging on her door calling, "Hermione? Hermione, wake up!"

She groped blindly through her wardrobe and came up with slightly baggy jeans and a tight T-shirt, and a hoodie on top. Which was really much too informal for a woman of her age—she was twenty six after all!—but frankly she didn't care, because there was an exciting aura to the day—a delicious sense of letting your hair down and being free, and wild, and to hell with the consequences.

Without even bothering to tame her hair, simply ripping a brush through it and throwing on a cap, she went out to meet Draco, who looked at her, thinking that she looked so young in those clothes.

He threw some green Floo powder in the ornate stone fireplace and shouted, "Diagon Alley!" and disappeared in a puff of smoke, absurdly reminding Hermione of Muggle children's magicians.

He was right—she had had to get out, she just hadn't realized it. There was something very delicious, she decided, about squandering a Galleon for nothing but an overpriced ice cream cone, just for the heck of it, and going out, and letting yourself go, and feeling the chill breeze on your face, and laughing for no reason but that you wanted to.

They went to Diagon Alley first, of course, and she window-shopped, while Draco watched her eyes light up and the glow return to her cheeks.

"Look!" she said excitedly. "It's adorable!" she was pointing to a glass figurine of a cat, its translucent head tipped back, looking haughtily down at her, its tail curved primly around its paws. "It looks just like you!" Her tone was half-malicious, half teasing, not quite sixteen, not quite twenty-six. Not quite Hermione Granger, not quite Hermione Malfoy.

Just Hermione, for now.

"Yes, it is adorable, isn't it?" he agreed, looking at the golden flush of her cheeks and the way a copper strand of her hair was escaping from under her cap and making its way around her ear.

"You aren't looking!" she accused, and he laughed, and she laughed, and they looked together at the cat, and he agreed that it did indeed look like him, and for one moment they were just—Draco and Hermione.

And it was nice.

She tired of window-shopping at last, and discovered that it had been two hours since they left without even eating breakfast, and it is eight o'clock now, because they left at six, early birds that they are, and she exclaims that he must be tired and hungry and why didn't he stop her?

And he just says that he doesn't mind window shopping. Which is the truth, because he could watch her window shop all day and not mind one whit.

So then they look around for somewhere to eat breakfast, and she sees this kind of run-down place. Not seedy run-down, but old run-down. Poor run-down. Like those gentle poor you read about in _Little Women, _or some such sentimental nonsense, because really, if you're poor, like dirt poor, which is the only kind of poor that should count, then you can't be gentle, because if you're gentle, you're weak, and if you're weak, you die.

But he doesn't say that out loud, and they go in, and he holds the door open for her, which is weird but not so weird if you think about it, and they order waffles together, and she laughs.

"Why are you laughing?" which is the kind of question you hear in plays, not real life, but then maybe real life is a play, because you know they say all the world's a stage, and besides, he can be cheesy if he wants to.

"Because it's just so—well, surreal, that I'm here, eating waffles, making conversation, with Draco Malfoy!"

And then she starts laughing all over again, and he laughs too, because she is laughing, because she will be sad if he doesn't laugh, and because he has to laugh, because if he doesn't he thinks he might cry. And Malfoys never cry.

After they eat the breakfast, which is pretty good, they go out and this time they really shop. Before an hour is gone by, his feet are aching and his back hurts and his hands are full of nonsensical trinkets, and his head is spinning and his eyes are gritty. But she is still fresh and sparkling, and her eyes are filled with life, and she is smiling and spinning and taking his hand and rushing off to yet another store, and he doesn't have the heart to complain.

She tries on dress after dress, and he smiles dutifully at them all even though he can't really tell the difference—because even though he is a Malfoy and a snot and a haughty ponce and a pansy and is almost as vain as a woman, he is blind, as all husbands are, to the fact that their wife might look ugly in anything, and he thinks that she looks beautiful in all of them—that she makes them beautiful, and he tells her so, on the spur of the moment.

It is a very un-Malfoy like thing to do, but he does it, and her eyes go wide and her breath catches in her throat and she blushes very hard, and suddenly he is glad that he has done it.

After they finish shopping, he finally manages to shrink them all, but she says that it's weird to shrink them—that it takes the fun out of shopping if you can just pile it all out of sight. He thinks that that is the worst load of gobshite he has ever heard, but he laughs and agrees to keep at least one bag.

Then suddenly a smile lights up her face and she hails a cab.

"Hermione! What are you doing? You don't need a cab—you can Apparate!" He has given her back her wand long time ago.

She doesn't answer, just gives him a very impish grin and climbs in the cab, and, muttering to himself, he climbs in after her. Leaning forward, she whispers something in the cab driver's ear, and he smiles and nods and shoots off.

"Hermione? Where are we going?" he is not very worried, but thinks that she might be going to the library, and that is not his idea of an outing.

"Anywhere!" she shouts over the rushing of the wind, because of course she has to roll the windows down.

"Huh?"

"We're going anywhere and everywhere, Draco! Just enjoy the ride!" and he says nothing, as he might have some other time, about the utter waste of money, because she has called him Draco, and that fact overshadows everything.

They ride about the town, with Hermione watching the scenery, and Draco watching Hermione, until it is time for lunch. She makes him eat Muggle food, and she is shocked that she has never made him eat a hamburger before. He tells her that she made him eat chicken noogats, and she laughs, and says nuggets, and he smirks, and discovers that hamburgers aren't that bad—are quite delicious really, even if atrociously messy to eat.

The rest of the afternoon they spend in an amusement park, of all places, even though he is twenty six and she is twenty six and they are both much too old to enjoy cotton candy and go on Ferris Wheels really, because Wizard adults mature so much faster than Muggle ones.

It has to do with being responsible for all that raw power.

Anyway, he discovers that she is scared to death of roller coasters but likes them anyway—sort of, it's the kind of fascination a mouse would have with a cat—and that he loves them and the thrill of adrenaline they give him, and the rush of power they seem to excite in his veins.

The Ferris wheel is silly really—for adolescents—but they do it, and the teenager operating the thing gives them a cat-call and a whistle, and Hermione blushes but Draco is rather pleased.

He has never suffered such a loss of dignity since he was fourteen and turned into a ferret—or maybe when he was seventeen and they discovered him half-dead, but he has fun nevertheless, and they spend the day laughing, and being—themselves. No last names. No Granger. No Malfoy. No Potions, no War business, no memories, just—Draco and Hermione. Hermione and Draco.

Hand in hand, like macaroni and salsa. And Draco thinks that maybe if she hears it often enough, and they spend enough time together, she'll see that they _fit _so well together, and that she'll come back to him again after all.

Because he still loves her, and she can see that surely?

It is almost dinner, and they are going to dinner at the Potters,' and Remus and Tonks will be there, along with Blaise and the Weaselette—he still calls her that, even though her last name is now Zabini—and Pansy and Weasley, and he thinks yet again that Pansy Weasley sounds plain weird. Anyway, they are going there in a few minutes, and then he will no longer have her all to himself, but the time now is the time they have, and right now, he is happy.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

"Malfoy! Hermione!" Harry welcomed them at the door, his mouth stretched wide in that crooked grin of his that was so endearing; his green eyes alight with happiness at seeing them there.

"Harry!" Hermione ran forward and threw her arms around him in her traditional hug. Cho showed no sign of jealousy, but Draco tried hard not to let his own upset emotions show on his face. Not that he thought that Hermione would ever cheat on him with Harry—there were no feelings between them that way. It was only that she had never touched him—not really—no more than perhaps a slight brush of the hand as she passed the butter.

And gods, how he missed her touch.

"Malfoy."

"Potter."

A brief clap on the shoulder, perhaps a manly hug, was all that was exchanged, and would ever be exchanged, between those two men who shared so much. Potter owed Draco a life debt. Draco owed him a life debt too, he supposed, if indirectly, since it had been Potter who had insisted that they spare his life.

A life debt was a strange thing. It makes for strange relationships. But it always makes for a relationship.

They were eating dinner at the table and laughing their heads off at a stupid joke that Potter told, the one about the hag and the Mimbulus Mimbletonia. It wasn't that funny really, not hilarious. No, they were laughing because they wanted to laugh, laughing just for the sake of laughing, because that's what you do when you get together with old friends.

Lost in thought about laughing for the sake of laughing—which was highly un-Malfoy-like, Draco was caught off guard when someone said, "right, Draco?"

"Huh? Oh yes, right," he said. A great cheer arose from the table, and as one, the three other males his age—Weasley, Blaise, and Potter—frogmarched him to the sofa. Apparently he had just agreed to a ridiculous orgy on the sofa.

And so it was that Draco found himself perched gingerly on the sofa of Number 12 Grimmauld Place watching a Muggle television show. He had been here before of course—it had been the headquarters of the Order and before that, the Black family House. But it was always odd to come back here. It had the strange sense of home and not home. There over there was the room where he and Hermione had first kissed indoors. (Which is an odd thing to commemorate, except for the fact that their first kiss had been outdoors on a broom, so yeah…)

There was the room where Potter had walked in on them kissing.

He remembered telling Hermione about it one evening.

_"How did Harry find out about us?"_

_"Well…it wasn't pretty."_

_"Oh gods, Draco," Hermione moaned. "I've missed you so much."_

_"You saw me just five minutes ago, at lunch," he teased while playing with one of the strands of her hair. _

_"You know what I mean. I think Harry suspects, __Draco,__ he keeps looking over at us suspiciously. And I KNOW Remus and Tonks suspect it, as well as Snape. Remus keeps shooting me these funny looks, and Tonks keeps—" here she blushed, "winking at me, and Snape shoots me all these evil glares."_

_"Do they make you feel like he's your professor all over again?" he whispered into her ear, his breath tickling it gently._

_"Yes," she panted, finding it hard to breathe. "How did you know?"_

_He smirked. "He does the same thing to me."_

_They giggled together, lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Their clothes were, of course, still on, but slightly rumpled, and the first few buttons of her shirt were unbuttoned, more because of the heat than because of their love-making. Draco was very adamant about not doing anything she wasn't ready for yet._

_It was then that Harry walked in on them. _

_"'Mione, have you seen my—"_

_What exactly Harry had been looking for no one was to ever know, because he stopped short when he saw the two of them lying together on the bed._

_He didn't shout, or blow up, or in fact, do really anything that they would have expected him to. Quite calmly, he turned around and closed the door, putting a silencing spell on it. Then he walked to the foot of the bed and sat down on it. It was only then that he spoke. _

_"Please to tell me what the HELL you two are doing?"_

_Hermione looked accusingly at Draco. "I thought you put a locking charm on the door?"_

_"I did," he answered, turning a glare on Harry._

_Harry, still fuming, only said, "Locking charms can be undone."_

_"Potter," drawled Draco. "Normally, when people use locking charms on their doors, it means that they want privacy."_

_"Well, it's a good thing I opened it then, isn't it, if this is what you want privacy for!" demanded Harry, his green eyes both blazing and hurt. "When were you planning on telling us, Hermione, at the wedding?"_

_"Harry!" exclaimed Hermione, sitting up hastily. Unfortunately, as she did so, her hair fell forward off her chest, and the few unbuttoned inches of her shirt __was__ shown. _

_Harry's face darkened, and he lunged for a suddenly very much alarmed Draco. Draco was taller than Harry—just a bit—but Harry was at least as strong as the blond Slytherin, who was, after all, rather slim. Harry was anything but built, but he was at least stockier than Draco. _

_Besides which, Harry's wand was in his hand, while Draco's wand was beneath him and Hermione, and it had been moved by Hermione's sitting up, currently out of Draco's reach. Quickly, Harry reached out and took Draco's wand, throwing it in the corner behind him. He then turned his attention to Draco. Hermione's wand was out and in her hand, but Harry simply immobilized her before she could speak. Unarmed and weaker than the other boy, Draco shrank back as the Boy-Who-Lived, his face a furious thundercloud, leapt upon him, apparently intent on strangling him with his bare hands. _

_"Potter…hold…on," he gasped out as the black-haired boy's hands began tightening on his throat, effectively cutting off his source of air. _

_"How DARE you—you—you miserable ferret, how DARE you do that to Mione!"_

_"We…didn't…do…anything," denied the other boy._

_"Her shirt says otherwise!" Harry banged Draco's head against the headboard. __Hard.__ Draco saw stars as he struggled to at least sit up, but his attacker had other plans, and was soon intent on messing up Draco's face and torso as much as possible before he had to immobilize Hermione again. Pretty soon, __Draco's face was bloody, his eyes were both black, he had a busted lip, he was pretty sure that his nose was broken, and had multiple bruises all over his body. _

_He was unable to fight back, partly due to the fact that Harry's wand was always jabbing him in the windpipe, and partly due to the fact that he was pinned down and also weaker than the other boy, who was furious and looking as though he were possessed._

_"Harry!"_

_Ah. The immobilizing spell had worn off. Before Harry could move his wand, as he was currently hexing the 'loathsome cockroach' with the Glacios curse, a jinx that made its victim shiver with cold and was just this side of Dark—in fact, Draco had taught it to him, and was now furiously regretting it, Hermione immobilized him in turn._

_Then, furious, she marched over and slapped him hard. After retrieving Draco's wand, she bent over the bloody mess that had once been Draco Malfoy and groaned._

_"Harold James Potter!"_

_And the lecture began. It was a truly stupendous lecture. Her inflections managed to convey a world of meaning in only one syllable. Her oratory was superb, her gestures stage-worthy as she scolded him without break. Even her diction was perfect as she shook her wand at Harry's face—something his eyes followed with considerable trepidation._

_"How could you attack Draco like __that!__ He was wandless, unprepared, and, furthermore, right now, beaten up! If you had to, you could have at least had the decency to stop after one or two punches!"_

_Thanks a lot Hermione, you really made me feel loved right there._

_"Just look at him! His face is bloody, his torso is a mess, and I'm pretty sure you've broken his nose! You are going down, Harry, you are going DOWN! What you did was barbaric and inhuman!"_

_While he appreciated her lecturing the four-eyed git, he was in some serious pain here! For one thing, he had an excruciating pain in his nose, his eyes were swollen, which meant he could barely see, he had blood all over his face—which was annoying right there—his scalp was tingling where Potter had bashed it, his torso felt like one giant bruise, and, to top it all off, he was shivering all over, feeling like he had landed in some seriously freezing water._

_Also, his lips ached, which meant he really couldn't form the words to tell her so._

_"__Mmph__," he managed. _

_In an instant, Hermione turned to Draco. "Oh Draco, I totally forgot! I'm __soooo__ sorry! I'll get Madam Pomfrey right away!"_

_In a few moments she was back, bringing a flustered nurse along with her. Clucking her tongue, the old nurse began fixing Draco up. In a short while, his eyes were fine, his nose back to normal, and his lips __healed, though he still had quite a few bruises on his chest—Madam Pomfrey couldn't remove them all, as the bruise remover spell could have a few nasty side effects if used too often. Also, he was still shivering from that damn Glacios curse._

_"Um—Madam Pomfrey?" he said. _

_"Yes, dear?"_

_"Potter over there—" he shot him a nasty glare—"cast the Glacios on me, and I'm really very cold right now."_

_"Oh—well, I'm afraid that I can't take it off. You'll just have to wait until it's off dear, which won't be until a few hours."_

_Great.__Just great.__ Catch him teaching anymore curses to the foul prat._

_Potter smirked, but Hermione said the most welcome words he had ever heard in his entire life. "Well, I guess I'll just have to warm him up then, won't I?" and then she wrapped her arms around him. The look on Potter's face was priceless._

Ah, the memories. He could relive that one forever—he might respect Potter now, and even like him a little, but he would still always be that bloody annoying Gryffindor.

He had tuned out most of the TV show—that was okay, it sucked anyway. Still, there was something nice about sitting together with Potter, Weasley, and Blaise, all squished together. It was, of course, uncomfortable, much too Gryffindor-ish, and below the dignity of a Malfoy—but some stupid sentimental Hufflepuff part of him, buried far below, liked it.


	20. Fevers, ‘Time of the Month’s, and Choice

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Nineteen: Fevers, 'Time of the Month's, and Choices, Choices

Disclaimer: Yada yada yada, not mine, I know.

A/N: Sorry I haven't updated for so long! I've had a major case of writer's block!

It had been exactly a month and five days since Hermione had woken up as Hermione Malfoy. True to form, she had been getting out more since Draco Malfoy had brought up the fact that she was looking as pale as himself.

Besides the excursions, however, her schedule continued in much the same way. None of the excursions were all day again—Hermione was still recuperating from the unfortunate Pensieve incident; but the short time that she did spend outside was lovely.

One morning, however, Hermione did not keep to her schedule of going down to the breakfast table.

Draco frowned. He still slept outside her door, curled up in a small ball against the cold, leaning against the doorposts, but Hermione had not mentioned since her first discovery, and the discomfort was a small price to pay in exchange for the physical relief it gave him to be near her.

The bond would tell him when she was stirring into the first stage of wakefulness, and it was then that he would go down to make breakfast, but today, she was moaning slightly and sniffling. He hesitated for a while, then knocked on the door and called, "Hermione?"

"Mmph…" she groaned.

"Can I come in?"

"Yeah," she grumbled.

Pushing open the door, he slowly peeked his head inside. The sight that greeted him was…unexpected, to say the least. Not that he was sure what exactly he had been expecting, so he couldn't really say that it was unexpected, but then…well, it was both less serious and more serious than he had expected…he wasn't making any sense.

Anyway, the point was, Hermione was lying down on her bed, propped up by pillows, her nose red, her eyes rimmed with red, her skin pale, and the floor around her littered with tissues.

"Hermione?" he asked, startled.

"Don't say it," she snapped. "I know I look bloody awful."

"Actually, I was going to ask what happened to you, but bloody awful will work just as well," he said, amused.

"I think I may have caught a cold," she grumped, reaching for yet another tissue from her heavily depleted box.

"You think?" he said, arching an eyebrow.

"Oh fine, I did catch a stupid cold. Merlin, I feel absolutely awful. I hate colds because they're so BLOODY IRRITATING!" she yelled. "To top it off—" she stopped suddenly and turned a deep red.

"Yes?" he asked

She flushed, if possible, an even deeper red and refused to reply.

"Ohhhh," he said in comprehension. "Is it by any chance a girl thing?"

She nodded, ever so slightly, and he stifled a laugh. "We used to tease Remus about that, you know," he said.

"Huh?"

"His 'time of the month,'" Draco clarified. "The Order members who didn't know about his condition—the sub members, or the ones we just didn't trust—all either thought he was gay, a cross-dresser, or had been subjected to a weird Potions experiment. As I recall, Hestia Jones—you remember, young, pink-cheeked, long blond hair and a very big—ahem," here he coughed and turned red. "Anyway, she offered Remus something called 'tampons' and 'pads.' I have no idea what they were, but he turned red and turned away coldly."

"It's a Muggle thing," Hermione giggled. "Oh no, you didn't really. That is just _too _mean."

"That's what you said that time too, as I recall," he said. "Potter and Weasley thought it was great fun, though. So did I.

"But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh?" she asked a little snippily. "What did you want to 'talk about' then?"

He sighed. Leave it to her to get sick and snappy on the one day he really wanted to discuss something important with her.

"It's…here," he closed the door and sat down on the edge of her bed, perching precariously between piles of used tissues and spots of damp sweat…among other things he didn't even want to think about, twisting his neck around to look at her half-closed eyes and miserable expression.

And then he stayed silent until she opened them again and asked, crossly, "What?"

He closes his eyes. Not even when he was trying to convince the Order to let him live has he felt this scared, this unsure of himself. Not even when he was proposing to Hermione, because that was a Hermione he knew, a Hermione who he was almost sure would love him back, but this—this was a new and dangerous ground all together, and he does not like it.

But he is willing to ask it—must ask it—will do anything, really, for her.

Only for her.

"What are we going to do?"

She stares at him, dumbfounded. This is not what she had expected, and he knows it, and she knows it, and for once in her life she is at a loss for words.

"This." He waves his arms. "Us." Gestures wildly at the two of them. "Are you going to stay with me?" unspoken are the words, _love me again?" _"Or—" his voice breaks, and his face crumples ever so slightly, and they both know what must follow after but what he has not the strength to say.

Distantly he reflects that this must be a strange scene. The two of them, a woman with red-brown hair and a man with platinum, sitting on a bed covered with defiled tissues, one with a face full of shock and desperation and a plea not to _ask that question, _and one with a face desperate and needy and a urge to _know what you will do. _

For a long, long moment, she is silent, and he feels as though for every second she waits, a new needle inserts its way into the frozen shards of his pathetic excuse of a heart, small, fresh cracks spreading long the surface of the icy glacier, cracking, hunting, hurting, killing, destroying.

Then she looks at him, and in her eyes is a cry of pure, raw desperation—_do __not ask me this, I cannot answer this, I dare not answer this__—_only he is relentless, he is unmerciful, because he feels that if he stops now, the pain of not knowing, of _never being sure _will kill him, a slow death, far worse than the quick death of the simple _no. _

Finally she speaks. "Give me time." Her voice is measured, controlled, betraying none of the raging emotions that are tearing her apart inside.

He shakes his head. "I have given you too much," he says hoarsely, and she knows that he speaks the truth. He must know now, or die.

She stares off at the far wall, and finally, she speaks yet again. "One day. Give me one day."

And he nods, because what else can he do?

"One day."

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

It was an immensely awkward day. The tradition of her not seeing Draco until breakfast, for one thing, had been broken, and it was…different when she showed up at the breakfast table, still in her purple robe with kitty cats holding umbrellas on them, and pink baggy slacks underneath, and Draco looking at from under that shaggy fringe of blond hair, looking at her so intently like she was the only person in the world. Had he always looked at her like that?

And then she disappeared into the library like she always did, because of course there was no question of their going out on today of all days, even if she hadn't been incredibly sick.

But it was harder to concentrate, somehow, on the essence of distilled Murlap, or even on the finer points of Acromantulas and Veelas and how they were related, when you kept feeling a cool grey-eyed stare on your back.

She kept shifting, uncomfortable under that keen gaze, unable to find a nice position when her back kept prickling so. It was impossible to pretend that this was a normal day when he kept _looking _at her like that!—and she so desperately just wanted to pretend, to forget, to just continue with this uneasy routine as though she wasn't going to face an ultimatum at the end of the day.

But it wasn't fair to Draco, she knew, to just string him along like this, without giving him any real reason to keep believing. And if she did decide against him later, it would be so cruel, really, when she had given him so much hope. She just didn't want—didn't want what?—not to commit herself? Was she still incapable of trusting a Malfoy—any Malfoy—even after what she had seen and learned?

She didn't want to think that she was capable of holding such a petty grudge, a schoolgirl rivalry that had somehow carried over into this her adult life. Was she even ready to be twenty-six, let alone Hermione Malfoy?

"Oh God," she whimpered, digging the back of her hands against her eyelids, feeling her knuckles dig against the flesh of her eyes through the thin covering of skin. Her mother had always told her that it was bad for her eyes, she thought randomly, and here she was doing it at twenty-six.

She wished they would just leave her alone!—leave her alone alone alone. She wanted to curl up in a corner and hide her face in her hands and be Hermione Granger again for just one more day!—forget about marriages and memories and ages and just be herself, because despite all this, she still thought of herself as Hermione Granger, and _damn _but she wasn't ever going to get used to being called Hermione Malfoy.

And from behind her hands, she refused to turn around, because knowing him, the silver gaze would be concerned, and oh God she couldn't face his concerned gaze when she was holding his future in her hands. Knowing him. Oh no no no, knowing him. Because she knew him. She knew Draco Malfoy, and that thought alone was scaring her to death.

For once in her life, books failed her, as she was unable to lose herself in their depths as she had wished, and she was short and snappish at lunch, which was macaroni and salsa, sniping about the fact that this was the tenth time in a month that they had had this dish. She was staring at the bowl, but her eyes didn't miss the quick flash of hurt and dying hope that flashed across the man's face, or the way his hands shook slightly as he carried her dish and his to the sink.

Feeling slightly remorseful, she did the washing up.

And then she felt lost, because what did she do now? Spending the afternoon with him was out of the question, yet for some reason she felt reluctant to break the schedule they had so tentatively established, as though doing so would be admitting the fact that this was not a normal day.

So she picked up the first thing that came to mind—her sewing thing, and headed slowly to the living room, dragging her feet as much as she dared. Then she put it down and went back to her room, because she had just spotted a stain on her shirt, and of course she had to change. She then proceeded to spend fifteen minutes picking out a new shirt, finally going back to the first one she had picked anyway, a flimsy copper little affair that was cropped just above her jeans, so that a tantalizing amount of skin showed, with little bits of cloth for sleeves. She figured that since technically this guy was her husband, he'd already seen it all…which made her blush violently, and she spent another five minutes in the room so he wouldn't see her blush. Then she spent yet another five minutes brushing her hair and changing into shorts…

When she had stalled all she could, she was thirty-five minutes late. Picking up her sewing thing, she entered the living room.

At her footsteps, a blond head shot up before it returned to its paperwork, but she had seen the blinding flash of hope that had crossed his face when she came in, and the look of dejection before she had entered. The scritch-scratching of the quill was erratic for a while, zigzagging sharply across the parchment in ecstasy as Hermione settled down to her sewing, a white…animal.

She wasn't sure exactly what it was, but the shape was working its way out as she went along, and her hands faithfully followed the lines her needle produced, working its way in, out, in, out…

Her eyes following the silver gleam…

It was…she jerked her eyes away from it and sighed, then gasped.

Lying in her life was a cloth animal that was undeniably….a ferret. Groaning, she closed her eyes and massaged her temple. From the desk, she felt rather than saw Draco look up, and knew that he longed to ask if she was okay but didn't care.

Why had she made a ferret?

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

From the desk, Draco winced as he saw her creation lying on her shorts. Damn. He didn't understand, was this good or bad? He wondered if it meant that he was continually in her head or if she was bringing up past school grudges and laughed slightly. The old phrase 'what goes around comes around' was really hitting home with this one. Closing his eyes, he thought of all the shit things that had happened to him, and then wondered if this was the worst life had to throw at him.

And then he remembered her smile, and the look in her eyes, and thought that it was.

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Dinner was something new—a sort of Asian dish, with tofu and a spicy broth, with mushrooms and seafood, and it was good and exotic and _different. _She had eaten this before. It was Korean, and she knew how long it took to make, and she winced because she remembered her harsh words at lunch, and knew that this was the result. No one should have that much power over someone else, but she did and had and knew that it was eating her alive.

Just as it was killing him.

After dinner, they headed to the living room as usual, and Draco perched awkwardly on the sofa with that same stiff, lordly posture he had always assumed anywhere and with anyone, staring at the flames. Hermione followed him in, and he quickly sat up, letting her sit on the sofa instead. As she hesitantly settled down among the huge cushions, which almost swallowed her up, he sat on the floor, leaning his head against the edge of the sofa, next to her.

The utterly submissive pose sent chills down her spine. So submissive, so _trusting…_he was putting his heart in her hands, and with one word she had the power to break it or mend it, and the power was thrilling in her, humming in her veins, seductive and luring as it was frightening.

"So," he said finally, staring at the flames.

"So," she said.

He tilted his head up to look up at her, his grey eyes wide and vulnerable. "What are you going to say?" he asked.

She paused. This was it, she knew. Whatever Malfoy was now, she had never known him to be forgiving, and if she said it wrong now, he would never take her back. His damnable Malfoy pride would keep him from dishing out second chances, even if it meant he could sneer condescendingly at her. _You know that's not true, _said a chiding little voice. _Even if he was like that once, he isn't now. _Whatever.

She looked down into his face, the mask of ice that was slipping now, slipping harder and faster than any time she had seen if before, the bare trust gleaming in his eyes, the _hope _that would be crushed, put out forever like a candle in the wind if she said no now. Saw the disappointment in Harry's eyes when he found out what she had done. Saw the outrage in Zabini and Parkinson's eyes, though why that should bother her she'd never know. Saw the puzzled bewilderment in Ron's eyes. Saw the disapproval in Ginny and Cho's eyes. Saw the disgust in Snape's.

Then she looked into the future, and saw herself, old, broken, exhausted, weary from staying with a man who had turned out not to have changed at all. Saw three split images of Malfoy at eleven running around bullying other children, making her life a living hell. Saw Malfoy's tantrums again, saw him calling her Mudblood, saw him _hitting _her—no.

He wouldn't do that…she thought.

But that was the worst case scenario, the best would be her living her life day in, day out, old, exhausted, weary from his constant pretense, this mask that she would put on the moment she said yes, the unspoken assumption that she loved him back, the strain of keeping up that loving façade, the knowledge that she would never truly be free to do what she wanted because Malfoy would be there, approving, disapproving. The knowledge that she would never find a man she truly loved, because she felt sorry for a ferret.

_Really?_Asked a voice. _Are you so sure that you would never find true love?_

She shook it away, almost sobbing with the stress of it all.

She didn't know. To say yes, to say no, yes, no, yes, no—

What to say, what to do, what to _think, _she was dizzy, the room was spinning, and oh god oh god oh god she couldn't _think, _and all the world was revolving and narrowing down to a pinpoint where all that left was—Draco.

And she opened her mouth, and spoke her answer.

Post A/N: Ooohh, cliffie, I know, don't kill me for it! But really, I have a cliffie for a reason. To torment you all poor readers, muahaha! Er…not. Well, that too, but actually I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO! So tell me, please? Yes or no? Yes or no? Bear in mind that just because she says no does NOT mean that it will be all over for poor Draco…so please review and tell me. I WILL NOT UPDATE UNTIL I HAVE HAD AT LEAST FIVE REVIEWS FOR EITHER YES OR NO!


	21. Apologies and the Knight Bus

Welcome Back, Hermione

Chapter Twenty: Apologies and the Knight Bus

Disclaimer: Lemme see… shuffles through papers oh yeah! I don't own Harry Potter! Wow!

A/N: Now don't get too mad at me…and I know this chapter was short, but there was no real other place to stop.

From last time:

_What to say, what to do, what to think, she was dizzy, the room was spinning, and oh god oh god oh god she couldn't think, and all the world was revolving and narrowing down to a pinpoint where all that left was—Draco. _

_And she opened her mouth, and spoke her answer._

"No," she said. Draco couldn't breathe, couldn't think, the world was spinning around him, the walls were closing in, everything was too cold, too stifling, waves of icy cold pressing on him, fingers running up and down his spine.

Time had stopped passing; the flames in the fireplace seemed to just freeze in place, the hands of the grandfather clock unmoving, the scream in Draco's throat choking him, unable to come out.

It seemed as though the universe had tilted off its axis, and the stars had stopped shining, and the earth had stopped spinning, and the moon had stopped glowing, and the sun had stopped rising.

The whole world tilted at an alarming rate, the ground was coming to swallow him up, but none of that mattered, it was all rubbish anyway, because she had said _no, _and no meant no, no laughter, no children, no joy, no comfort, no love, no _life, _because no meant no Hermione, and that meant no anything.

No to everything.

Finally he managed to choke out, "Why?"

It sounded so pathetic, so helpless, but then he was helpless, and he had never felt as pathetic before in his life, so it didn't really matter now did it? Nothing mattered anymore.

She wouldn't meet his eyes, instead staring at the flickering patterns the firelight made on the wooden floor. "Because—I can't—I just—oh damn, Draco, I can't do this. I can't pretend to love you, I can't commit to staying here with you, when I don't—I mean—it's not—"

_I can't stay here when I don't love you, _the unspoken words hung in the air between them, clogging his breath, an ooze of fog, dark and cloudy, creating a barrier between them that he did not want to see.

And then he wanted to protest, somehow, a childish whine, the last remnants of a long-lost spoiled brat inside of him saying, "_But I want you, but I need you, but can't you see how right we are together?" _He wanted her to ask how she could just leave him after seven years. He wanted to remind her of all the times she had told him she loved him. He wanted to tell her that she couldn't go, he'd die without her. He wanted to know if anything had meant anything to her, if it had all just been a stupid hoax. He wanted to say so many things they all came rushing in his throat at once, choking him until there was only room for three words, three simple words, and that might be okay, because really it all came down to this—

"I love you."

Then he got up slowly, slowly, like an old man—no, like a young man aged before his time, trying desperately to keep this last modicum, this last vestige of pride he had left, because pride was all he had left, clumsily grasping the sofa arm and rising to his feet, though the world swayed around him. He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry, he wanted to collapse on the floor and just make it all go away, but he couldn't. He couldn't. Lucius Malfoy had done his work well.

"For what it's worth," she said, looking at the ground, "I'm sorry."

And then he couldn't stop himself, all the pent-up hurt and rage at her came lashing out at her, and he hurled, "Sorry for what? For losing Potter's respect? For leaving all your fine books? For disappointing Weasley?"

Her face seemed to crumple just a little bit, the lines around her eyes drooping, and the thin line of her lips trembling ever so slightly, but she held her chin high and refused to look away, and he felt rather ashamed of himself, and lowered his eyes and muttered, "Sorry."

"No," she said. "No, I deserved that. It's just—I can't, you know?"

Yes, he did know. He knew that she deserved much better than him, that she would never love him again, that maybe she had never really loved him in the first place, and that right now, he was better off dead. But he would never understand. Never ever ever.

"I'm sorry," she whispered again. "We—I can't do this. You understand, don't you?"

"No," he said bitterly. "No, I'll never understand."

She nodded, as if accepting the fact.

"But I'll let you go."

Then he stepped toward her, hating how she shrank back just a tiny bit, and how her hand strayed to her wand, and cupped her cheek in his hand, and asked—no, begged, "Please? Just one last kiss?"

Her face tensed, and she looked like she was going to run away.

"Please," he begged, allowing the last vestiges of his ravaged Malfoy pride to fall away, letting her in, letting her see all the pain and all the longing and all the raw hurt she had given him, not caring now whether the kiss would be out of pity, simply longing for and needing her touch.

And she turned her face up, and screwed up her eyes. He covered her lips with hers, gently, not attacking, not demanding entrance he knew she was not ready to give, just—a gentle kiss, until all the dams broke, and all his regret and sorrow and anger and tears flowed through that kiss, from one soul to another, and when she broke the kiss off and stepped back, he had tears flowing down his face, finally, broken, tears falling from his eyes without a thought to cover them up, because nothing mattered anymore.

She stared at him, her chin quivering, stared at the tears, the first tears she had seen from him, and choked, "Why? Why do you keep loving me, even though I just keep hurting you? Why don't you hate me?"

"Because I can't," he said bitterly. "I'd love to, but I can't." He laughed, a short wry laugh that wasn't a laugh at all, but only a hollow, empty shell of it, and continued, "And you know what? I can't even blame you for losing your memory, because it was all my fault."

"What are you talking about?" her voice was demanding, just a little bit frightened maybe. Still suspicious of him and his motives.

"The Potions explosion. You warned me not to do it. Too risky, you said. Too dangerous. You said that the dragon's blood was too volatile, too dangerous, and that the Boomslang skin would nullify the calming effects of the daisy roots. But then I wouldn't listen, and you got upset, and I got mad at you, and I swung the whole damn vial of the blood around, and tipped it in the cauldron, and that was when everything blew up on us."

He couldn't look at her, so he stared at the ground instead, at the knot on the wooden floor that was shaped irregularly, a blob of brown that, if he tilted his head just right, looked almost like her blasted Kneazle-cat.

"So you see, the whole fiasco was really my fault, so I can't exactly blame you for losing your memory."

_For not loving me._

He didn't say them aloud. He didn't have to.

She didn't say she forgave him. She didn't tell him it was all right, like the old Hermione had done. How could she? By losing his temper, he had inadvertently stolen ten years of her life. Anger choked up in her throat slightly, but it was mostly regret, regret at all the would-have-been-could-have-been-should-have-beens, and she found that she couldn't even yell at him, for by accidentally erasing her memory he had destroyed his life.

So she just nodded, and looked at him, and tried to smile and found she couldn't, and just brushed by him and headed up the stairs to—to what, really? Everything in this house was his.

He seemed to sense her unease, and said without looking at her, "Anything you want, you can take. Most of it was bought with the money I made from investing with your money."

_Did you marry me for my money? _She remembered hurling it at him, sniping and constantly hurting him. She had sworn she wouldn't do it again, yet here she was hurting him far more than she had ever hurt him before or ever could again. Without turning around, she nodded yet again and continued up the stairs to pack. She wouldn't take much.

She came down later, with suitcases all shrunk and placed in her pocket. It wasn't much really, just almost all of her clothes—what could he do with those?—and her makeup, and jewelry, which she thought she might sell, and other personal effects. She had longed to take the books, but ended up choosing only a few—most of them were so expensive, and she couldn't take them all. And her wand, of course. That was all.

No money. She couldn't take money from him as well on top of everything else she had taken from him.

He stopped her at the foot of the stairs. "You can't leave tonight," he said. "It's late, and you won't get far before the sun sets. Even summer days don't last that long."

"I can sleep on the Knight Bus," she said coolly. Cool was good. Cool meant she didn't have to think.

She saw the flash of hurt on his face but pretended not to notice, even though the bond was screaming at her for hurting her husband.

"Fine," he said. "At least take this." He pressed a small envelope into her hands. "It's the key to our Gringotts Bank vault. I changed it to your name."

"But—I—what about you?"

"I have enough in investments. And that's only the largest vault. We have others."

She nodded mutely. He could take care of himself.

_The question is, would he? _Whispered an insidious voice in her mind. She pushed it away; she had made her choice. She could live with it.

"I'm sorry," she whispered yet again as she stepped outside the door and began to hail the Knight Bus. Suddenly, she felt very very tired. The sun was extremely bright.

Unreasonably so.

Finis

Post A/N: Now before you all start flaming me—

STOP!!!!

This is not the end. There will be an epilogue. I know not everything is all tied up in this chapter, not really, to your satisfaction, so yeah…I promise there will be an epilogue, and I can almost guarantee that things will look up for Draco and Hermione. So I hope I haven't disappointed all your fluff-voters out there _too _much…

Remember, there WILL BE AN EPILOGUE!


	22. And You'll Come Back To Me

Welcome Back, Hermione

Epilogue: And You'll Come Back To Me

Disclaimer: I swear to God I don't own Harry Potter, yeah, yeah, you know the drill. Though since this is about Harry Potter, maybe I should say swear to Merlin? But if I don't own Harry Potter, I have to be outside of Harry Potter to not own it, so should that be swear to God? Hmmm….must think about this…

A/N: Yes! It's finally it, this is the end! Thanks to Beneeta and BlewStar101, who more than anybody else have stuck with me till the end, reviewing always and encouraging me to continue. And to all the other beautiful reviewers, whose constant updates have made me love this story so much!

THIS IS WHY THIS STORY HAS BEEN UPDATED. VERY SORRY TO ALL OF YOU WHO WANTED A REAL EDIT, I PROMISE I'LL GIVE THAT LATER. I AM CHANGING MY USERNAME TO SILVERMISERY SOON. I NOTICED LOTS OF PEOPLE HAVE ALERTS ON THIS ONE, SO THIS SHOULD HELP.

Someday we'll know  
If love can move a mountain...  
Someday we'll know  
Why the sky is blue...  
Someday we'll know  
Why I wasn't meant for you...

(From, Someday We'll Know by Mandy Moore, quote provided by Vitalya)

Seven years. It had been seven years.

Seven years was a long time for anyone, even wizards.

Seven long years.

Seven long years of waking up in the middle of the night, shaking and panting and trembling all over, drenched in his own sweat and panicked grey eyes and a throat hoarse from screaming and tear tracks running down his face.

Seven long years of turning around to ask Hermione what she thought about the latest spell, or a new scandal in the papers, only to find himself looking at empty air, and cold heaviness, and a sharp tweak at his heart that he steadfastly ignored.

Seven long years of breaking and healing, a slow long process of crawling around on his hand and knees, gathering up the shattered pieces of his heart and putting it back together again. The shards cut him, red blood trickling down his arm, and his movements were clumsy, with pieces falling out of place and put in roughly, with none of the Slytherin subtlety that had once marked him, jagged cracks and chips around the edges from missing pieces and changed shards.

But he had survived, because he was Draco Malfoy, and Draco Malfoy was—what? Draco Malfoy was no longer nothing without Hermione Granger, because Draco Malfoy was Draco Malfoy, not Hermione Granger, and he knew he could get past this, because Slytherins were survivors.

It had taken him seven long years to discover that he was indeed something without Hermione in his life, that he had a life and a world apart from his wife, but he had done it. Potter had been with him every step of the way, encouraging, pestering, never _letting up!—_and Severus, his cold cruel sneer goading him, pushing him beyond what he had thought were his limits, and Cho, smiling at him with those sparkling eyes, and Remus, and Tonks, and so many others, until he had realized that Hermione was not his only friend after all. He had never known how many people cared for him, in their own Gryffindor way.

But he had done it, and he had survived, and he could almost believe now that he was better for it. Certainly that was what all those Gryffindors (with the occasional Ravenclaw and Slytherin thrown in) wanted him to believe.

It was only sometimes, on those rare occasions when he still woke up shivering in his sleep, eyes open wide and his mouth agape with a soundless scream, that he thought that he would have given it all up if she had been with him, and all the would-have-could-have-should-have-beens plagued his thoughts.

He sighed wearily and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, a distinctly un-Malfoy-ish act to do. Yes, he enjoyed his work as a powerful Ministry official and diplomat. He had been born for this—the intricate dance, step by step, of dancing around people and promising things without really promising, and maneuvering cold careful intrigues and schemes around those whom he disliked.

It was simply—taxing at times, really, and on some nights he was exhausted. Blindly he groped for a Pepper-Up potion, unscrewed its cap, and tipped the contents down his throat. Severus had come up with some way to make the thing actually palatable, but old habit remained with him, and he tossed it back as he had always done. Sucking the last drops from the cheap disposable plastic vial—bad quality, something his father would never have stood for, but then he was not his father—he began to return to his paperwork, then stopped.

Yes, there it was, the unmistakable sound of the doorbell. Sighing, he stood from behind his desk and began exasperatedly making his way to the door. Probably Potter again. Honestly, these bloody Gryffindors had no sense of propriety.

Scowling, he flung open the door, ready to reprimand the sodding Boy-Who-Lived-To-Annoy-The-Hell-Out-Of-Him. The lecture died on his lips, and he stood frozen as he faced the woman who had haunted his dreams for the last seven years.

She'd changed, he realized dimly. There were lines around her eyes and on her forehead that not been there before, and a weight on her shoulders as though she had carried things no person should have to carry, and for a split second he longed that he could have carried them for her.

They stood there like that for a long time, the blond man standing there stiffly, one hand still on the doorknob against the wall, the other half-raised with his wand gripped firmly, ready to hex the person he had thought was Potter, the brunette woman standing turned slightly, her hand hesitantly on the doorbell, the other wavering at her mouth, a nervous habit she had kept over the years, her body half-turned away, as if to leave, her copper-brown curtain of bushy hair half-shielding her face.

It was the woman who broke the silence. "May I—may I come in?" she asked finally, her voice as tentative as the hand that was still hovering about her lips.

Dazedly, his eyes never leaving her face, Draco nodded and stepped aside.

Slowly, carefully, Hermione made her way in, sinking down on the black leather sofa which he had kept after all these years.

"How…how have you been?" she asked, her voice wavering ever so slightly.

"Well enough," he said, his voice sounding distant even to his own ears. "The Ministry took most of the money they granted me away when you left, but I had enough by then to continue with most of the investments. Potter helped a bit too. He's not half-bad for a Gryffindor after all. I have a new job now."

"Yes," her voice was tinny, high-pitched as her hands scrabbled nervously in her lap. "I heard."

"Lovely. And you?"

"I—" she knew him, and she could feel the hidden barbs and questions in that seemingly innocuous common courtesy, and she winced.

"Yes?" his voice was cool, impolite, as though he were discussing the weather with a petty, bribe-seeking Ministry worker, and she flinched at his tone.

"Damn it all, Draco," she said, surprising even herself with the vehemence in her tone. "What do you want me to say?"

"Whatever you want to say," he said. "You're very good at doing that."

"Please," she begged, and looking into her luminous eyes he found himself weakening, ever so slightly, and he cursed himself for doing so, because he was so damn weak, and nothing was ever going to change the fact that he would always be too weak to be a Malfoy, and Lucius had been damn right hadn't he, because he had been weak with her before and nearly died as a result, and so help him Merlin, _he was not going to be weak again!_

So he looked away coldly and tried to ignore the pain tearing at his heart, something he had thought was frozen beyond repair.

"Draco," she said. "I came to tell you something."

"Tell me what?"

"What I learned during these seven years," she said in a low voice, not meeting his eyes. "But I'm beginning to think that it would be better if you told me what you learned."

"What I learned?" he asked, deliberately keeping his voice neutral. "I learned that I could survive without you. I learned that I didn't have to center my universe around you. I learned that somehow, the world would keep spinning after you left me. I learned that even though you weren't around to pick up the pieces of my heart, I could do it by myself."

She seemed to deflate suddenly, as though the very life had gone out of her, and said softly, "I guess then it wouldn't be any use to tell you what I learned."

He talked right over as though he couldn't hear her. "And then I learned that despite it all, I'd still rather focus my universe around you, and I'd still rather it be you who picked up the pieces of my heart, not me. Because I made a shit job of it anyway."

He thought that he had never seen something so beautiful as her face when it lit up as his last words.

"And do you know what I learned?" she asked, leaning forward, the same old excitement sparkling in her eyes, and for a moment she was the old Hermione again, lines and burdens gone, and he smiled at her in return, a reflex unbroken by seven years.

"I learned that I was so stupid, so _bloody stupid, _that I had to spend seven years searching the entire world for something that had been right in front of me all this time."

His lips wouldn't function. Nor would his throat, or any part of him really.

"And then I learned that nothing, not money, not friends, not even books, would replace what I had lost, and I learned that seven years may be too late, but I had to try nevertheless."

And she leaned forward even more, and suddenly he found himself with her arms wrapped around him, and his arms wrapped around her, sheltering them both from the world outside, until it was a moment where it contained only—them two, Draco and Hermione, Hermione and Draco, and he was sobbing, great huge wracking sobs that shuddered through his entire body, tears streaming down his face and into her hair, and she was crying too, into his chest, and they were rocking together, back and forth, two lost broken souls, two halves of a whole, needing to come together, because sometimes, just sometimes, two wrongs can make a right.

"Why?" she whispered into his chest, a mock-parody of what she had whispered seven years ago. "Why, Draco? I just keep hurting you, and you just keep taking it, and comforting me when I get hurt through faults of my own. Why?" her hands fisting in his chest, grabbing the cloth of his shirt, shaking him.

"Because I love you," he answered honestly, letting all the repressed love, and anger, and pain, and fear flow into his voice, letting her see what she meant to him. "Because no matter what you do, I'll always be there waiting for you, picking up the pieces and waiting for you to come home.

"Welcome back, Hermione."

_I'll always be waiting for you, girl_

_Always be here for you_

_Waiting for you to finally see_

_What I've known all along_

_And waiting for the day when you realize_

_That where you belong is with me_

_And then you'll turn it all around_

_And you'll come back to me_

_And I'll be waiting here for you, girl,_

_Waiting for __you with my arms open wide. _

Finis (for real now)

Post A/N: Yay! It's finally, finally finished! I told you things would look up! This has taken a bit over a month, and I'm so, so happy I finally finished it…even though I am a little sad. But that's okay, because I have so many more fics I am working on right now, and more ideas just bubbling to the surface! See you later!

Oh, and please review! I was so happy to all you faithful reviewers!


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